“No, not Ebola,” Key quickly assured him. “Take it easy, Morty. This plastic container is not exactly hermetically sealed, but it’s still a good idea not to expose it to too many environments too quickly. I just want to examine it, and maybe take a small sample.”
“Okay, okay, already, then just do it, will you?” Daniels moaned. “And let’s get out of here. This place is so fucking hot I’m about to go into a coma like Lucky.”
Key nodded, then gripped the container top. It snapped and popped off without any worrisome sound of released gas or air.
Inside was what looked like bone fragments, frayed cloth patches, egg shells, wisps of webbing, and a single fingernail.
“Disappointment,” Daniels complained. “Always a fucking disappoi…fuck!”
The last syllable was a booming screech. The others jerked in place, then snapped their heads to where Daniels was staring.
Directly between and behind Gonzales and Key was Ayman. From where they were standing his face was now toward them. His mouth was distended into an unnatural chasm, his eyes bulging out of his head like erupting pimples, and his spasming fingers pulsating like a frog’s throat—something darker, chunkier, and hotter than blood pumping from every opening.
Chapter 7
“Fuckaduck!” Daniels bellowed, only this time with more anger than surprise than usual. He balled his fist in preparation for a preemptive strike.
“Don’t touch him!” Key shouted, scurrying away himself while taking care to keep the container level and secure.
Daniels looked confused, even a little annoyed. “I don’t wanna touch him, I wanna beat him back to unconsciousness!”
“Back off, Morty, just back off!” Key ordered, keeping his arms out, one in Gonzales’s direction, and one pointed at Daniels. “And keep your distance!”
Daniels took a step back, lowering his fist as he went. The three men formed an equilateral triangle around the wretched morgue attendant, who, now that they could focus on him, looked more pathetic than threatening. The shopkeeper twisted and juddered as if a demon puppeteer was yanking on wires attached to every joint, while thick, lumpy, dark liquid burbled out of his nostrils, mouth, and even ears.
“Did Goodman look like that?” Daniels asked Key.
“I don’t know,” Key answered. “I was a little distracted at the time. What did you see? Did anybody else in the unit look like that?”
“I don’t know,” Daniels answered. “I was busy too!”
Gonzales made a sound that combined shock with revulsion as, while he watched, Ayman’s eyes began to split open. The Omani stopped, shuddered, then started violently vibrating.
“Now what the fuck?” Daniels complained.
“Take cover!” Key yelled, already charging the freezer.
Daniels fell to the floor and started crawling under the table as Gonzales dove for the break room door. Neither quite made it before Ayman erupted with a flesh-ripping, bone-shattering blast.
Steaming hot liquid splattered the walls, floor, and even ceiling. Shards of bone ricocheted off the morgue doors and tables. Daniels barked in pain and disgust, while Gonzales hit the break room floor and slid into the shelves, bringing down the video games.
Key let the room steam and sizzle for a few seconds before poking his head from the freezer. “Morty, Speedy, you guys okay?”
A few more moments passed before Gonzales moaned. “How do you define ‘okay’?”
“Morty?”
“Fuck,” Daniels said as he slid out from under the table. “A,” he continued as he slowly stood. “Duck,” he finished as he looked at the way his hands and head—the two items closest to the detonated attendant—were splashed with brackish, smoking, fluid and pieces of offal. By the look on the sergeant’s face, Key wasn’t sure what he’d do: go berserk or collapse crying. Instead, he waited until Gonzales slowly started to emerge from the now ironically termed break room, then spoke flatly. “What’s the Arabic name for ‘Bad Lucky’?”
* * * *
“Sayiya Ayman,” Gonzales said as he drove the two to his workshop on the southwest corner, just off the grounds, of the Thumrait Air Base.
“What?” Daniels growled.
“Bad Lucky.”
Daniels grunted with no pleasure. His skin and hair was already dry from the dousing they gave him at the morgue bathroom. Gonzales had given him his boxers while Key had given him his T-shirt, which was all the sergeant wore now. Key had burned the rest, including Daniels’s desert boots.
Daniels, of all people, had wanted to wait for the hazmat team, but Gonzales was all too happy to drive when Key decided they should vamos.
They sat silent for a few minutes, digesting what they had just experienced, but, finally, Daniels could take no more.
“Why didn’t you just burn me too?”
Key, who had been lost in thought, looked at his associate. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you burned my clothes because you thought they might carry whatever this shit is. You destroyed the samples because they were swimming in this shit too. It doesn’t take a fucking genius to figure I’m as good as dead.”
Key snorted. “Are you kidding me, Morty? Goodman exploded right next to me, remember? His remains were like an eighth layer of skin for God knows how long. Do I look as good as dead to you?”
Daniels raised an eyebrow. “Not yet,” he said cautiously.
Key shook his head. “They did every test on every part of me at Lemonneir,” he reminded his partner. “Whatever this thing is, apparently you don’t get it by contact with the victim.”
Again, by Daniels’s expression, they weren’t sure whether he was going to start laughing or crying. Ultimately, as per his wont, he settled on anger. “So why the fuck did you burn my clothes?”
“Because,” Key said, “you do get it somehow. Poor Ayman got it, so I burned on the side of caution.”
“Could be in my hair, right? Microscopic particles of shit.”
“Possible, but not likely,” Key said. “Since boot camp, what were the two things we instinctively covered?”
Daniels grunted. “The fruits—melon and nuts.”
Key nodded. Daniels seemed to relax a little.
Gonzales steered his Desert Demon past the Harvest Falcon depot—which housed the Air Force’s transportable system of billets, bivouacs, modular equipment, generators, shelters, tents, and vehicles—that stretched off into the distance.
“You’re never at a loss of something to repair, are you?” Key asked their driver.
Gonzales shook his head. “Keeps me busy, and informed.” He pulled up to what looked like a giant corrugated steel oil tank that had been sliced down the middle and laid on its side. He powered down the Desert Demon, then glanced at Daniels. “I should be able to find you something more suitable to wear inside.”
“Good,” Daniels said miserably. “Because I don’t know what fabric softener you’re using, but it ain’t working.”
“Fabric softener?” Gonzales said with an exaggerated accent as he got out. “We don’t need no stinkin’ fabric softener.”
But even Daniels forgot to keep grousing when they stepped inside the Hispanic Mechanic’s Studio. Instead, the sergeant’s grin started stretching from ear to ear despite the fact that the trip from the vehicle to