Plague War by Jeff Carlson

Author:Jeff Carlson [Carlson, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Epidemics, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Nanotechnology, General
ISBN: 9780441016174
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-07-29T07:00:00+00:00

16

The three of them strode onto the mountaintop with their guns drawn. They made a triangle with Newcombe’s assault rifle in front and Ruth and Cam on either side. She knew they must have looked faceless and alien in their masks and tattered gear as they staggered into sight. Ruth felt her pulse slamming through her limbs, but her good arm was anchored by the weight of her pistol.

“Stop!” a man shouted. Thin, black, he had blots of pink rash on his nose and chin. He’d turned his shoulder as if to hide the stub of a knife in his hand—or to put his full weight into swinging it.

Behind him, a white girl crouched and grabbed up a rock, and the rest of the loose crowd seemed to duck at the same time. The sound was very human. Voices. Boots. They created a small rustle of bodies against the endless drone of the planes and suddenly Ruth was aware again of how exposed they must be on this light-washed peak. The day was coming to an end. They stood far above the sunset. Ruth’s shadow stretched away in front of her, joined with the outlines of Newcombe and Cam, whereas the others’ eyes and teeth glinted in the orange dusk.

Some of the strangers hid in their low stone-and-earth burrows. Most of them spread out. Ruth focused on a limping man who quickly reappeared from behind the nearest shelter. He paced sideways to flank her, holding a shovel like a spear. His face was lopsided by old blister rash and a badly cauterized wound. He had only one eye.

“Gun,” Cam breathed. Ruth’s gaze flickered left to his side of the rock field. There was a shaggy-haired man with a hunting rifle and her heart beat so hard that it felt like it had stopped, one painful throb and then nothing else.

“What do you want!” the first man shouted.

“We’re American,” Newcombe said, but the words came out like a bark. He was panting. Ruth and Cam, too. The rush up through the final hundred yards onto this island had taken everything from her. It was an effort just to stay on her feet. Each of them stood bent by their individual pains. Ruth hunched over her bad arm and Newcombe had set his rifle against his hip like a crutch. “American,” he said.

The other man kept circling closer. Fifteen feet away. The round blade of his shovel was blunted but shiny, worn bright by the hard ground. Ruth twitched violently and straightened up through the pain in her side. She made sure he could see her pistol, but there was no change in his dead face.

“There might be more of them,” the girl said, and the black man shouted, “Just get out of here!”

Cam found his breath first. “U.S. Army Special Forces,” he said, tipping his head down at Newcombe’s shoulder patch. His pistol never wavered. “We’re here to help, so tell him to back off!”

“U.S. Army,” the black man repeated.

“We can stop the plague.

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