The last remaining North Korean commando held the poor child up with his left arm, gripping her tightly across the chest. Against her head, Shin’s bloody, mangled right hand held the vial of deadly poison.
He had been so far ahead of the rest of the chase that Marcus didn’t think the other patrol cars would find them for some time yet. Johnson stood his ground, pistol raised, aimed at Shin’s head. The guy was wavering on his feet. He couldn’t get a clean headshot without hitting the girl or the vial. The police car’s headlights cast long, dark shadows onto the snow as the North Korean soldier limped back, the vial of death pressed into the girl’s sweating temple. Her screaming had stopped. The wretched creature breathed in shaky, sobbing whimpers.
The air lay frigidly cold. Steam poured from around the truck in the open hole in the house. Every breath sent up a white mist that hung in the air like a wispy fog around their heads.
Shin reached the side door of the car but couldn’t open it. Not enough hands. He would have to either lower the vial or put down the girl. He looked back and forth between the door and Marcus, then quickly reached for the door with the hand that held the vial.
In a sudden flurry of movement, the girl completely freaked out. She kicked and screamed so violently that the North Korean soldier nearly dropped her. He tried to raise the vial toward her head again. Before he got close, she kicked back with her feet. Her heel smashed his damaged knee. The dead, frost-bitten flesh, already torn wide open by the boot of the lady trooper, peeled completely from the joint. Shin lurched back in pain as the bones of his right knee twisted. The ligaments audibly snapped under the strain. The sudden disconnect sent him to the ground. Searing pain flashed like a bolt of lightning through his entire body.
Shin still clung to the girl as she spastically flung her arms and kicked like a berserker, mind lost in the midst of the fight. The child repeatedly slammed her head into his nose until it was completely flat. Blood poured like a river over his lips and dripped off his chin. Shin held her with his right forearm, the vial still in his fingers’ grasp.
He reached around with his left hand to restrain her head. She opened her mouth wide to scream again and found his hand on her face. The girl clamped down with her teeth. A chunk of flesh below his thumb came off in her mouth. Shin threw her clear as he screamed in pain. His left thumb, nearly severed, dangled by a few sinewy strands.
The girl scurried away through the snow toward the house. A smear of blood spread around her mouth like a horror-movie lunatic.
Marcus lunged toward the North Korean commando, pistol raised to the man’s chest. He pulled the trigger. The pistol responded with a dull click. The weapon was loaded—there was a round in the chamber—but something blocked the firing pin. Marcus yanked the receiver and let it slam forward to clear the jam. When he squeezed the trigger, again there was only a click. Moving from cold to heat to cold again, condensed moisture had frozen in the weapon. The firing pin was blocked.
Lieutenant attempted to stand, but crumpled as soon as he put weight on his leg.
Marcus rushed him. He swung the pistol down like a club. The North Korean caught Johnson’s hand as it descended and let out a yelp as the force hit his severed thumb. He drove the vial up to smash it on Marcus. Johnson feinted right, avoiding the vial.
Lieutenant Shin suddenly retracted his arm and smashed the vial on his own forehead. It shattered. Bits of glass and the thick, yellow liquid showered outward.
Marcus leaped off the man and rolled through the snow. He jumped to his feet and tore off his coat. Then he reached up to his chin, pulled the balaclava out and away from his skin, and off his face. He took care not to let the outer surface touch his skin. As fast as his arms could move, he stripped down to his long underwear and T-shirt.
The North Korean commando screamed in agony then screams abruptly fell silent. Marcus looked over and saw what was left of him lying in a moist, foaming heap on the snow. The upper half of the body boiled with the seething reaction. It was soon reduced to an unrecognizable mass of shining orange foam and blackened, distorted flesh. Marcus stood transfixed as the process continued to spread through the rest of Shin’s body.
“Get out of the snow!” a voice shouted.
The sound shook him from his daze. Lonnie shouted again from the porch.
“Get out of the snow! Hurry, Marcus! It spreads through water!”
Marcus looked down. A slowly growing redness spread across the snow from Shin’s body. Marcus ran toward the house. The pile of his clothes he left on the ground steamed and burned as the TZE dissolved the material to allow a pathway for the bacteria to find flesh.
In four long strides, he crossed the snow-covered yard and leaped onto the porch. The girl clung to Lonnie, her body still shaking like a leaf. The three of them moved into the house. Marcus found a kitchen towel, wetted it and gave it to Lonnie. She wiped at the blood from the sobbing girl’s face with a kitchen towel. Lonnie looked like she had been through hell. A deep, red gouge creased the flesh above her left ear. Half-dried blood caked her cheek
