“… Rat Catcher…”

“… scientist…”

“… monster…”

Gutsy thrust the cooler into Spider’s hands, whipped out her machete, and wheeled on the crowd. “Anyone lays a hand on her, I’ll cut it off and feed it to my dog.”

That stopped the murmuring and the movement toward where Holly still sat.

“This woman helped me get stuff we need to fight what’s coming.”

“She’s a monster,” yelled a big man as he came pushing his way through the crowd. His face was scarlet with fury. “Those people killed my Mary…”

Alethea shifted into his path and touched his chest with the fat end of Rainbow Smite.

“Don’t,” she warned.

The big man glared past her and then down at Alethea. His furious eyes filled with tears. “They killed my Mary,” he said again in a voice that was suddenly small and lost. They were the same words, but they came close to breaking Gutsy’s heart.

Gutsy reached out and gently pushed the baseball bat down. She looked up at the man, who towered more than a foot over her.

“Mr. Howard,” she said in a measured voice, “I know how hurt you are. You know that I know. You came to Mama’s memorial. But listen to me now. Please. Things are worse than you know. We aren’t just facing los muertos. Not anymore. Not even just them and the ravagers. There’s something else coming. Something called wild men. A different kind of infected. They’re faster. Smarter. And they are definitely coming here. Soon.” She pointed to the cooler. “The stuff Sergeant Holly helped me bring here is the only thing that might give us a chance. I need you—and everyone—to leave her be. Same with Doctor Morton. Judge later, but right now do what I ask, or everyone will lose… everyone.” She stepped a little closer and lowered her voice, speaking only to him. “Please.”

A big sob broke in his bull chest and he nodded, turned away, and shambled back into the crowd. Other people put comforting hands on his shoulders. No one else made a move toward Holly.

Gutsy looked around at the people of her town. Then she took the cooler back from Spider and raced toward the hospital.

65

MORTON AND FLORES WERE WAITING for her, already alerted to her dramatic return.

“Did you get it?” cried Morton. “Tell me you got it.”

Gutsy set the cooler down on the now-empty autopsy table. Morton struggled to his feet and peered in as Flores removed the top. The doctor nearly fainted.

He turned to Flores. “You see? I told you she would do it. Remarkable young woman. Truly remarkable.”

The pharmacist nodded to Gutsy. “He made me get everything set up because he was convinced you’d bring this stuff. I’ve been mixing a nutrient-rich stabilizer. Mostly horse dung, but we have a lot of it.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Morton. “The engineered prions will bond to the organic material, and that will allow it to last much longer. Days without refrigeration.”

“We have people making more of the stabilizer,” said Flores.

Gutsy glanced dubiously at the cooler. “What good will all that stabilizer do if we only have a little of the Dòmi?”

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“Prions are small,” said Morton, tapping the cooler’s lid with a fingernail, “and there are a lot of them in here. Mixed correctly, we could create a few tons of weaponized Dòmi.”

“Tons?” Gutsy gasped. “That’s great! We can throw it in batches off the wall once the wild men infect los muertos. If we time it with the way the wind’s blowing, we can—”

“Are you mad?” cried Morton. “We need to get out of this town as soon as possible. Right now.”

“But why? We have the Dòmi. You said the wild men will infect or destroy all of the undead, and that Dòmi will stop them.” Gutsy was furious. “That’s why I went to the darn base. What am I missing?”

“Use your brains, Gabriella,” snapped Morton. “Yes, the Dòmi will work, but we don’t have any kind of delivery system to regulate how we use it. Once Wodewose eliminated the parasites, we would then introduce mass quantities of Dòmi to shut down their aggression. And that’s if it worked as intended. Remember, this project was shelved before we’d done any major field testing. This is theory. Dòmi was never intended to be used in areas with active communities of uninfected people. If the Raggedy Man’s army is infected by the paracide, there could be half a million or more wild men scaling the walls. If we had fifty times as many able fighters as we do now, and each had automatic weapons with an unlimited supply of bullets… we’d still lose.”

Tags: Jonathan Maberry Benny Imura
Source: readsnovelonline.net