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He looked down at the clock on his laptop. Ten minutes to one. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours since this thing started. It felt like a year.Advertisement

The news feeds broke into the story to announce that the president was going to address the nation at 3:00 a.m. Goat wondered if he would pass the buck onto the previous administration, or to spooks within the intelligence community who still clung to the glory days of the Cold War. Or, would the president take the hit, be the captain of the ship? Either way, a lot of things were going to change.

Goat sipped his coffee and wondered when Billy would call. The last message from him said that they were going to take the infected outside. Since then … nothing.

Headlights flashed as a car pulled into the lot. Goat flicked a glance. A metallic green Cube. Ugly. Same make and color as the one in Aunt Selma’s front yard. It made him think of that, and how it all started.

Then his mind ground to a halt as the driver’s door opened up and a man got out.

A tall man. Bare-chested despite the cold.

A grinning man, with a tattoo of a black eye on each flat pectoral.

Goat wanted to scream but he had no voice at all. He wanted to run, but he was frozen in place.

The man walked the few steps between car and door in an awkward fashion, as if his knees and hip joints were unusually stiff.

Goat’s fingers were on the keyboard. Almost without thinking, his fingers moved, tapping keys as the bare-chested man pulled open the door and stepped into the Starbucks. The few remaining customers turned to look at him. The barista glanced up from the caramel macchiato she was making. She saw the bare chest and the tattoos. She saw the caked blood and the wicked smile.

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The man stood blocking the door. Grinning with bloody teeth.

Goat’s fingers typed eight words.

The barista screamed.

Goat loaded the address of the press and media listserv into the address bar.

The customers screamed.

Goat hit Send.

Then he, too, screamed.

In Bordentown. Homer Gibbons. Quarantine failed. pqdm.com