GONE TO BIRMINGHAM "SAFE ZONE", JIM PETERS AND THREE BOYS. WONT BE BACK-HELP YOURSELF IF YOU NEED IT, LEAVE IT FOR SOMEONEELSE IF YOU DONT [Handwritten note taped to an abandoned car in Jasper, AL, 4/10/05] I touched his face with these fingers. His skin like beaten copper. His eyes were terrible to look upon. The water that had frozen me and kept me from the worm, for two thousands of years-ththere never was a thing so cold as those eyes. Even as he relived the memory Nilla could see the religious awe that gripped Mael Mag Och and twisted his spine rigid. His face was the blank mask of the trance state, his eyes wild under their beetling brows. He wore a mantle so fine, so soft to the touch that it lifted as the cold water stirred around me. Teuagh, he was, the Father of Clans. The judge of men. And he was angered. "Gheibh gach n bas!" he told me. Everything must die. Lass, do you believe me, that I saw him, that we spoke?

Yes, Nilla said. She stood on top of an arch of red rock overlooking a million square miles of desert canyons twisting like the surface of the world had been rumpled up, bedsheets kicked sideways by the stretching, yawning upheaval of the Rocky Mountains. Coursing out of tiny holes in the rock, smoke, greasy and thick with soot rolled down the canyons in a flash flood of dark energy, from east to west, following the sun. It picked and tore at the rock, kicked up great spuming sprays of darkness, pushed onward, ever onward, flooding the world. She blinked and it was gone, just rock again, stained the color of sunset.

She'd seen lots of things since she gave in to Mael Mag Och. She'd seen her own reflec tion. She'd seen a world that hated her, and she'd seen why, and why she was allowed to hate it back. Why she was supposed to.

She'd seen how things really worked. How anyone could just fuck with you, any time they wanted. There was no stopping them and they could make your life hellish. Make you do horrible things.

Teuagh is moving us, like the pieces in a game, and I doubt you like it much, I know I don't care for it. Yet it's a hard thing to move backwards on this board. It's a painful thing to break the rules. You see, don't you, how we're made for this? How his hand molded the clay of us for this work? We can't paint pictures, lass, not with these clumsy fingers. We can't write poetry. But we can kill. Oh, we are made to kill.

Yes, Nilla said. They were moving, moving eastward. The armless dead man moved behind them, easily keeping up. Against the flow of the dark energy-Nilla could feel it growing stronger the farther they went. Stronger and more angry. It raged against the world it destroyed, it bit and scratched and rent everything it touched asunder. It was inside of her, that darkness, and Mael Mag Och had become its emblem.

She was terrified of him. She needed him. There, he said. He pointed to a place ahead of them. A place where the twisting canyons had been dragged into a semblance of order, into straight lines: a grid. Streets marking out square plots of land, tiny houses in the desert all pointing the same way. The city glittered on the dull desert plain.

It occurred to her that Mael was manipulating her. Maybe he was putting thoughts in her head. Maybe he was just using her the way people have used each other since the first dawn. But like a dream that feels so vivid when you hold it in your head, only to flee in every detail when you consciously try to recall it, she couldn't make the connections.

There she lies, the fortress citadel of Las Vegas. She's stood longer than most, and I admire her for it. But all worlds must end some time. My world ended when I plunged into that dark water, a human sacrifice for the good of my folk. Yours ended with teeth in your neck. You know what you need to do, lass. For me and the Father of Clans.

Yes, Nilla said, and headed down into the city of Las Vegas alone.

can u help?!? Got 3 ded outside, more on way. Plz, B4 2 l8!!1 [SMS spam message, Evergreen, OR, 4/11/05] An old chart laid out in grid squares flapped across the wooden table, stirring up dust motes in the wan light of the office. Here, gentlemen, you see the Potomac river. It is so wonderfully fitting that my new Army of the Potomac will be turning the tide on this menace. I've thought often of that irony, especially in draft revisions five and six, which seem to fit best with the current situation. Revisions seven, eight and nine assume an insurgence of anarchists from the Mexican border. I don't feel that applies to us now, no.

Purslane Dunnstreet's botulin -paralyzed face couldn't show the years of tiny strains, the pockmarks of decades spent crouched over situation papers and classified troop strength analyses and ordnance maps, all the years of being ignored in her fly-specked pigeonhole where the light coming through the window was the color of old tobacco stains and even the radio got bad reception. The frozen contours of her eyes couldn't demonstrate the obsessive nature of her task, or the million slight frustrations the years must have brought her. The mental enervation of planning and planning and revising and re-envisioning and drafting and rewriting and compiling five hundred page reports guaranteed to be only glanced at before they were filed away in the Pentagon's back hallways, in the White House sub-basements, but most of all, the sanity fatigue of just working at it, spending every waking moment obsessed with one singular idea that no one else ever took seriously-that strain could not manifest on her face.

Instead it came out in her fingers. She touched her neck and sighed happily. Honestly I was beginning to doubt the Dunnstreet Maximum Faith-Based Provisional Order of Battle would ever need to be invoked. I suppose the Boy Scouts had it right after all. Be Prepared', it really is the most essential thing. She waggled her digits in the air and Clark's stomach churned.

Thin, white, worm-like appendages, extruded lengths of flesh that twisted around one another in complex patterns. It was not enough to say that she wrung her hands in excitement as she laid out her Big Idea on the table before them. She tied her pasty fingers in knots, cracked the knuckles with a sound like mice being trodden underfoot, drummed her fingertips on the table so fast her French manicure blurred while Clark watched it dance.

The New Citizen Army will sweep through here, and up through Georgetown, cutting off any advance. The city will be secured. And then it's onward to New York. A new map clattered across the table, blasting cool air into Clark's face.

He shook himself awake. He'd been so mesmerized by the fingers he'd lost almost all the details of the plan. He had the gist of it, though. Purslane Du nnstreet's foolproof plan would have worked marvelously-against an invasion of Nazi stormtroopers. She wanted entire columns of armored vehicles stationed on the Beltway. She wanted to draw in every element of the military-regulars and reserves-that could make it in time to create a single overwhelming force to protect Washington while the rest of the country was left defenseless. She wanted constant overflights of D.C. with nightly bombing runs. She had provisions against insurgencies by Fifth Columnists and a contingency for providing disinformation to any spies who cropped up. She wanted commando raids on enemy strongholds and a network of resistance fighters to sprout up in the occupied territories.

Not a single part of her plan made any sense when applied to a horde of mindless, unarmed civilians who outnumbered the military units a hundred to one.

The infected didn't send spies into your camp. They didn't hold strongpoints or even beachheads. You could bomb them into paste and others would just flood in to take their place.

Clark glanced over at the Civilian, who was paring his fingernails with a tiny nail clipper attached to a keychain. The Civilian must have understood the look on Clark's face. He shrugged in reply. When Dunnstreet finally finished her presentation she went to the printers and handed each of them a hefty document, still warm and redolent of ink. Clark leafed through his, finding hundreds of pages of information on how to deal with looters in a time of martial law.

Your Operational Para meters Document, gentlemen. Please do not lose it. That would be a grave breach of national security. It outlines the powers you will assume and the tools and equipment you may requisition in the defense of freedom.

It's like the Shaper Image catalog, the Civilian gleamed, except with more nerve gas. Clark flipped to the back of the document. A hefty chapter covered when he was and was not justified in using lethal force against healthy civilians. Basically whenever he wanted, he gathered. He just needed to know which code to use when he filled out his after-action reports later. Clark placed it neatly on the table, square with the edge.

He cleared his throat. Thank you very much for that presentation, Agent Dunnstreet, he said, rising from his chair.I have some information I'd like to show you myself. He clicked open the latches of his briefcase and took out the papers Vikram had prepared for him.

I do so love raw data, Dunnstreet announced, writhing her fingers together at her shoulder until they flew apart with a dry snap.

To: DarkGothKiller14@hotmail.com

From: xxXHomerclesXxx@battle-net.com

Re: Mom's Okay, just Scared So stop calling all the time, k? No word from dad/stepwhore but will let you know. Dont come here, coz Ohio is bad, according to the tv. Stay put and safe, bro.

Peace out

ted

[Undeliverable email stored on server mail@battlenet.com, 4/12/05] Clark laid a sheet of 11x17 paper on the table. It showed a map of the United States with Vikram's spiderweb superimposed on top in various colors. Our epidemiology studies produced this. A woman lost her life for it. He met Dunnstreet's gaze, then the Civilian's. They had to listen to this very, very closely. It could change everything. Originally we were working on an infectious disease hypothesis. That is, that the Epidemic is a pathogen spread by close contact with infected bodily fluids. We believed it began in the prison at Florence, then spread to California by way of a vacationing staff member. The chain of evidence looked good and we believed we understood how this thing works.

Of course he had looked for a pathogen. It was what he was trained for: biological terrorism. He remembered how he had upbraided Assistant Warden Glynne for letting the prison riot go three days before calling it in. Glynne had assumed he was looking at a new and especially pernicious drug. Drugs were a major problem at the prison, so drugs were what he looked for.

Shame pushed up out of Clark's collar and spread across his cheeks. He should have been more flexible, more open to other possibilities. Countless people had died because he had assumed the Epidemic had to be a disease.

Then some very smart people thought to actually put the data into a spreadsheet and see what came out. What we see nowis that this isn't an infectious disease at all. Whatever it may be instead is spreading in a radial pattern, something no biological agent ever does. Instead it propagates like sound waves or radio waves, only far, far slower. He pointed at some blotches on the map, places separated by hundreds of miles but which had been overrun by the infected on the same day, the same hour. It's emanating from somewhere here in the Rocky Mountains and spreading outward in every direction like a ripple on a pond. Nothing stops it, nothing can protect against it. Wherever the leading edge of this wave arrives, the dead come back to life and attack the living.

The dead? the Civilian asked, glee lighting up his face. The dead. Time to face facts. Desiree Sanchez had finally proved her point to Clark, and all it cost her was everything she had. Enough! Guilt wasn't going to get him what he needed. I don't know what's here. He stuck his finger on the spot in the mountains that had to be the epicenter of the apocalypse. But I know it's causing this... disaster to happen. And I believe that given the right opportunity, he stiffened his spine and stared into the middle distance. Well. If something can be turned on, perhaps it can be switched off.

You think you can stop the Epidemic? You want to stop it? Purslane Dunnstreet asked, sounding dismayed. Stop it altogether? The dead just fall down and don't get up again, nobody else rises from the grave, we get around to the long and painful process of rebuilding? the Civilian asked, looking greedy.

Clark folded his arms behind his back and nodded, just once. This was it. The last best chance for humanity and it could be done in his back yard with a handful of men. So you're saying, Dunnstreet said, very, very slowly, that you don't want to participate in the Defense of the Potomac. She went to her charts. I had a company picked out for you, especially, Captain. A company all your own.

Clark's face fell. After decades of keeping his feelings to himself, this was too much.

Purslane, I think perhaps we've covered enough for today, the Civilian said, rising from his chair. Captain, Dunnstreet said, ignoring him. I can understand if my battle orders frighten you. I can, truly, I know what it is like to quaver before a grand duty. I hope you will reconsider. Before you leave, though, will you do one thing for me? Will you pray with me for our nation?

Without taking her eyes off of him she sank to her knees on the floor. She wove her fingers together into a tight, bony ball and looked deep into him with dewy, innocent eyes that sat in that porcelain face like raw oysters on a dish.

Well, you two? she asked. The Civilian grumbled and got down on his knees.

FULL UP-NO REFUGEES

No food, no water, no drugs, no money,

NO TRESPASSING NO SOLICITATION.

Sorry, were closed!

[Painted on the front entrance of a DiscountDen superstore in Springfield, MO, 4/11/05] As she wriggled through the gap below a chainlink fence on the edge of a golf course a sharp point of steel stuck into Nilla's back. She felt her shirt tear, then her flesh. She grimaced-there was little pain, but she knew the wound would look terrible and she needed to pass for human. At the very least she would need a new shirt.

Nothing for it. She squirmed in the dirt and crawled through, onto immaculate bluegrass. She kept low and moved quickly across the green, knowing that if she was caught she would be slaughtered on sight. She was halfway to the clubhouse when a barking dog made her jump in her skin.

Shut up! someone yelled. Shut up already! What the fuck's the matter with you? The voice came from just over a low rise in the course. Nilla dropped to the grass on her stomach and stopped breathing. The dog appeared on top of the rise, ears flicked back, nose sniffing at the air. A German shepherd, straining on its leash. She quieted herself as Mael had taught her and banked the fuming darkness of her energy. It was getting so much easier, and she could hold the darkness down for longer and longer periods of time. There. She was invisible. The dog pawed at the ground and whimpered for a moment, then kept right on barking.

Damn. It could smell her. She imagined sinking her teeth into the dog's neck. How good it would feel. The animal's golden life glared in the darkness and she wondered if it was thinking exactly the same thing.

There's nothing there, facewhore, the dog's handler said. A teenaged boy in a brown baseball cap and a tan windbreaker. He had his collar up to keep out the night's chill and a lit cigarette dangled from his fingers. See? Nothing. Now shut the fuck up!

The boy yanked at the dog's chain, viciously. The dog howled in pain but at least it stopped barking. Boy and dog both disappeared behind the rise again and Nilla let go of the death grip on her energy, sinking back into visibility.

In another minute she was at the front entrance of the golf course and she crossed the road with an unbearable feeling that she was being watched, that at any moment the boy would look over and see her running across the deserted blacktop. Her luck held out and she made it to the shadowy side of a house.

She was in. Excitement thrilled through her -or it could have been fear. She crept to edge of the shadow and looked out and down the length of a razor-straight road that intersected the famous Las Vegas Strip. The neon lights were still on. They filled the air around them with an incandescent haze, turning the night into well, not day, but something more like day than it was like night.

Rrright.