Feed

had a better idea of what happened. Irwins sell suspense. Newsies sell the news.

“What’s he doing?” Rick asked, raising his eyebrows.

“You’ve seen those video clips of Irwins talking about fabulous dangers and horrible lurking monsters?”

“Yeah.”

“That. On your count, Shaun!”

That was his cue. Suddenly grinning, suddenly relaxed, Shaun directed the smile that sold a thousand T- shirts toward the camera, flicked sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes with one gloved hand, and said, “Hey, audience. It’s been pretty boring around here lately, what with all the politics and the sealed-room stuff that only the heavy- duty news geeks care about. But today? Today, we get a treat. Because today, we’re the only news team being allowed into the Ryman ranch before decon is finished. You’re gonna see blood, guys. You’re gonna see stains. You’re gonna do everything but taste the formalin in the air—” He was off and running.

I admit it: I tuned him out as he started getting into his spiel, preferring to watch rather than actively listening. Shaun has working his audience into a frenzy down to a science; by the time he’s done with them, they get excited by the mysterious discovery of pocket lint. It’s impressive, but I’d rather watch him move. There’s something wonderful about the way he lets go, becoming all energy and excitement as he outlines what’s coming next. Maybe it’s geeky for a girl my age to admit she still loves her brother. I don’t care. I love him, and one day I’ll bury him, and until then, I’m going to be grateful that I’m allowed to watch him talk.

“—so come with me, and let’s see what really happened here on that cold March afternoon.” Shaun grinned again, winking at the camera, and turned to head for the barn doors. As he reached them, he called, “Cut segment!” and turned back, joviality gone. “We ready?”

“Ready,” I said.

With all chances to gracefully decide, “You know what? This is a job for the authorities—the people we pay to risk their lives for information” behind us, Rick and I followed Shaun through the feed room and into the last of the Ryman’s four barns.

The smell hit first. There’s a stench to an outbreak site that you never find anywhere else. Scientists have been trying for years to determine why it is that we can smell the infection even when it’s been declared safely dead, and they’ve been forced to conclude that it’s the same viral sense that lets zombies recognize each other, just acting on a somewhat smaller scale. Zombies don’t try to kill other zombies on sight unless they haven’t had anything to eat in weeks; the living can tell where an outbreak started. It’s probably another handy function of the virus slumbering in our own bodies—not that anyone can say for sure. No one has ever been able to put the smell into words. Not really. It smells like death. Everything in your body says “run.” And, like idiots, we didn’t.

Once the feed room door was shut, the barn was washed with the same dimness I experienced before. “George, Rick, lights,” Shaun called. I had time to raise my arm to shield my eyes before the overhead lights clicked on. Rick made a faint gagging noise, and I heard him throwing up somewhere behind me. Not a real surprise. Everyone tosses their cookies at least once on this sort of trip—I had, after all.

When enough time had passed to let my eyes adjust to the limits of their capacity, I lowered my arm. What I saw was sheer chaos. The foaling barn seemed bad at first, but it was really nothing, just a few odd stains and some dead cats. The dead cats were here, too, strewn around the floor like discarded rags. As for the rest…

My first thought was that the entire barn had been drenched with blood. Not just sprayed; literally drenched, like someone took a bucket and started painting the walls. That impression passed as it became clear that the majority of the blood was in one of two locations—either smeared along the walls in a band roughly three feet off the floor, or soaking the floor itself, which had turned a dozen different shades of brown and black as the mixture of bleach, blood, and fecal matter dried into an uneven crust. I stared at it, unblinking, until I was over the urge to vomit. Once was fine. Twice was not, especially when round two happened in front of the others.

“These are labeled with the names of the horses,” Shaun called. He was on the far side of the barn, studying one of the stalls. “This one was called ‘Tuesday Blues.’ What kind of name is that for a horse?”

“They liked weather names. Look for Gold Rush Weather and Red Sky at Morning. If anything odd happened here, we might find signs of it around their stalls.”

“Under the six hundred gallons of gore,” Rick muttered.

“Hope you brought a shovel!” Shaun called, sounding ungodly cheerful.

Rick stared at him. “Your brother is an alien.”

“Yeah, but he’s a cute one,” I said. “Start checking stalls.”

I was halfway down my own row of stalls—between “Dorothy’s Gale” and “Hurricane Warning”—when Rick called, “Over here.” Shaun and I looked toward him. He was indicating a corner stall. “I found Goldie.”

“Great,” Shaun said, and we started toward him. “Did you touch anything?”

“No,” Rick replied. “I was waiting for you.”

“Good.”

The stall door hung askew. The hinges had been broken from the inside, and the wood was half-splintered in places, dented with the crescent shapes of a horse’s hooves. Shaun whistled low. “Goldie wanted out pretty darn bad.”

“Can’t say that I blame him,” I said, leaning forward to study the broken wood. “Shaun, you’ve got gloves on. Can you open that?”

“For you, the world. Or at least an open door on a really disgusting horse stall.” Shaun swung the door open, latching it with a small hook to keep it that way. I bent forward, letting my camera record every inch, as Shaun stepped past us into the stall itself.

Something crunched under his feet.

Rick and I whipped around to face him. My shoulders were suddenly tight with tension. Crunching noises in the field are almost never good. At best, they mean a close call. At worst…

“Shaun? Report.”

Face pale, Shaun lifted first one foot, and then the other. A piece of sharp-edged plastic was wedged in the sole of his left boot. “Just some junk,” he said, expression broadcasting his relief. “No big deal.” He reached down to pull it loose.

“Wait!”

Shaun froze. I turned to stare at Rick. “Explain.”

“It’s sharp.” Rick looked between us, eyes wide. “It’s sharp-edged, in a horse stall, on a breeding ranch. Do you see any broken windows around here? Any broken equipment? Neither do I. What is something sharp doing in the stall? Horses have hard hooves, but they’re soft on the inside, and they get cut up really easily. Competent handlers don’t allow anything with a sharp edge loose near the stalls.”

Shaun lowered his foot, careful to keep his weight balanced on his toe, not pressing on the plastic. “Son of a—”

“Shaun, get out of there. Rick, find me a rake or something. We need to turn that straw.”

“Got it.” Rick turned and headed for the rear corner of the barn where, I supposed, he’d seen some cleaning equipment. Shaun was limping out of the stall, still pale-faced.

I hit him on the shoulder with the heel of my right hand as soon as he came into range. “Asshole,” I accused.

“Probably,” he agreed, calming. If I was calling him names, it couldn’t be too bad. “You think we found something?”

“It seems likely, but it’s not your concern right now. Get the pliers, get that goddamn thing out of your shoe, and get it bagged. If you touch it, I’ll kill you.”

“Gotcha.”

Rick came trotting back, rake in hand. I took it from him and leaned over, starting to poke through the straw. “Rick, keep an eye on my stupid brother.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Using the rake to turn over the straw where Shaun had stepped uncovered several more chunks of plastic, and a long, bent piece of snapped-off plastic in a familiar shape. Behind me, Shaun breathed in sharply. “George…”

“I see it.” I continued stirring the straw.