front. Sitting in the driveways of the next three houses was a 1985 Pontiac Fiero, a ’95 Geo Tracker and a 2004 PT Cruiser Woody. At least my property taxes were low.
The Porsche was crouched low along the gravel shoulder in front of the doorless house I thought was abandoned, three doors down from mine. The gleaming machine looked like it had been warped here right off a showroom floor. Even the tires looked scrubbed down to a pure layer of factory rubber.
I made it to the house and scanned around the yard. Nothing unusual. I was going to have to clean those gutters soon. The gigantic tree back there was dying and dropped every leaf by the first week of October. The leaves were ankle-deep but I knew they’d eventually blow into my neighbor’s yard. The old guy who lived there seemed to like doing yard work so I think that worked out for everybody. I let the dog poop in the yard and let myself in the back door. I passed into the living room and there was some freaking guy sitting there.
He sat in my tattered recliner, making himself right at home. Probably forty or so years old, dark hair with a little gray at the temples, about three days’ growth of beard stubble that followed an angular jawline. He had a chin butt. He wore a leather jacket that had been manufactured specifically to look worn and faded right off the rack, over a black button-up shirt that sat open at the collar with the top three buttons undone. He wore jeans and cowboy boots, legs crossed casually. He looked like he had been clipped out of a catalog and I immediately knew this was the owner of the Porsche.
I said, “I think you wandered into the wrong house, buddy.”
He did exactly what I knew he was going to do, which is reach into an inside pocket and pull out a little leather ID wallet. He flipped it open.
“Good morning, Mr. Wong. I’m Detective Lance Falconer. You and I are going to have a talk.”
5 Hours Prior to Outbreak
Molly went right to the stranger in my living room. He scratched her behind the ears, then she curled up at his feet.
“Pretty dog. How long have you had her?”
I hesitated, thinking at first this question was some kind of a trap. He was a cop, after all. Then I decided that was silly and that he was just trying to be polite. Then I realized his being polite was itself a method of getting me relaxed and accustomed to answering his questions, and that in fact it was part of a trap.
“She’s my girlfriend’s dog. She likes to bite people in the crotch, out of nowhere. You know it’s almost four in the morning?”
Lance Falconer glanced over at a framed picture on top of my television. It was a picture of me, looking chubby and pale and my hair looking like it was being blown around in a hurricane, standing behind Amy with my arms wrapped around her, looking over her, her mop of red hair under my chin. She wore sunglasses and a huge smile, I wore the expression of a man worried that a stranger was about to steal my camera.
“That your girl?”
“Yeah. We’re engaged.”
“She live here?”
“She’s away at school. Learning to be a programmer. What’s this about?”
“Can I ask what happened to her hand?”
The guy was good. Amy’s normal right hand was visible in the picture, holding a $5 stuffed elephant she had won at a carnival game using only $36 worth of tickets. Her left arm hung down almost out of frame. But if you were observant, down at the very edge of the photo you could see a little sliver of blue sky where the arm ended at the wrist.
“She lost it in a car accident years ago.”
“Did you go to see her? Is that where you’ve been tonight?”
“No.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Burrito stand. What did you do, break in?”
“Door was unlocked. I had reason to think you had been the victim of a violent crime so I let myself in.”
“I’m pretty sure you can’t do that, detective.”
“I’ll give you a phone number where you can call to complain. I have my own entry on the voice mail tree. Your friend had some concern that maybe Franky Burgess had come after you. You know, the guy who attacked twenty people at the hospital yesterday. Then I asked the local cops if anybody had talked to you yet, and was surprised to find that nobody had. In fact, around the police station any mention of your name just yields awkward silence.”
“Well, as you can see, I’m fine. That door you came in works as an exit, too.”
“A moment of your time, please. You understand we’re in the middle of the biggest manhunt this state has ever seen. I don’t see a whole lot of chance Franky is still drawing breath but you can imagine why we’d like to find him and put everybody’s fears to rest.”
“Why aren’t you out helping then?”
“I had to make sure he wasn’t here, didn’t I?”
“Well, you’re free to have a look around.”
“Thank you, I did. He
“Yeah.”
“Right before he started shooting and biting people at the hospital. Just minutes before, in fact.”
“Yeah.”
“And was he acting strange at all?”
I could feel my face getting hot, the heat radiating up from my jawbone. Starting to feel cornered.
“No, he wasn’t ranting or anything. He didn’t say much.”
“He was responding to a call from a neighbor saying you were making lots of noise and screaming.”
“Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t all that. There was a thing in my house, it woke me up. Bit me.”
“A ‘thing’?”
“I think it was a squirrel or a raccoon or something.”
“When officer Burgess left here, he seemed normal?”
“Yeah, yeah, like I said. Just told me to be careful. He was more worried about me than anything.”
“And you and your friend John didn’t drive Franky to the hospital? Because eight witnesses saw you. And they got you on a security camera. And your friend talked to a member of the staff, saying Franky had some kind of seizure. And he talked to a news crew, on camera, and said that Franky was infected with a tiny alien parasite.”
“Oh, right. John is… weird. You know. Drug problem.”
“But you say Franky seemed normal when he left.”
“I mean… he was normal when he walked out. It was out by his car, he started having problems. We loaded him in his car and drove him to the hospital.”
“Nothing led up to the seizure? No strange behavior? No tics or spasms or words not making sense?”
“No, no. He seemed fine. You know, he didn’t seem like he was on drugs or anything.”
“What was in his throat?”
I was taken aback. I had been looking around the room, avoiding the detective’s eyes. But when he said that, my attention snapped right to him. He noticed.
“What do you mean?”
“Your friend, John, he told the staff to check Frank’s throat.”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don’t know, when he started having his seizure or whatever it was, he started grabbing at his throat. Like he was choking.”
“Had he been eating something?”
“No.”
“Smoking a big cigar, maybe? Got surprised and swallowed it? Maybe he had a wad of chewing
