Scott Sigler - Infected

To my mom and dad, the best people I have ever known.

To my wife, for the endless patience.

To my O.J.syou know who you are.

Ive got you under my skin,
Ive got you deep in the heart of me,
So deep in my heart, youre really a part of me,
Ive got you under my skin.

I tried so not to give in,
I said to myself, This affair never will go so well.
But why should I try to resist, when, darling, I know so well
Ive got you under my skin.

Id sacrifice anything come what might,
For the sake of having you near,
In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night,
And repeats and repeats in my ear,

Dont you know, little fool, you never can win,
Use your mentality,
Wake up to reality.
But each time I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop, before I begin,
Cause Ive got you under my skin.

Cole Porter, Ive Got You Under My Skin

Let the skies turn black

Let the infection burn

This is a new beginning

Killswitch Engage, World Ablaze

THIS IS THE PLACE

Alida Garcia stumbled through the dense winter woods, blood marking her long path, a bright red comet trail against the blazing white snow.

Her hands shook violently. She could barely make a fist out of her talonlike fingers, nearly numb, wet from the big clumps of snow that fell thick and fast all around her, melting almost as soon as they hit her skin. When the time came, could she even pull the trigger on Luiss old revolver?

A searing pain in her stomach brought her thoughts back to the mission, the divine mission.

Something was wrong. Well, fuck, it was all wrong, and had been from the first moment she started scratching at her belly and her elbow. But something was even more wrong, something inside. It wasnt supposed to be like thissomehow, she knew that.

She looked behind her, along the bloody path through the snow, eyes searching for pursuit. She saw nothing. Shed spent years in fear of the INS, but it was different now. They didnt want to deport hernow they wanted her dead.

Her hands and legs oozed blood drawn by scratching branches. Her left foot bled thanks to the shoe shed lost some time ago; the snows thin, jagged crust made every step a cutting crunch. She didnt know why her nose bled, it just did, but all those things were trivial compared to the blood she vomited every few minutes.

She had to go on, had to go on, find the placethe place where it would all begin.

Alida saw two massive oak trees, reaching out to each other like centuries-old lovers, a freeze-frame of perpetually denied longing. She thought of her husband, Luis, again, and thought of the baby. Then she pushed those thoughts away. She could think about that no more than she could think of the nasty thing on her belly.

Shed done what she had to do.

Three bullets for Luis.

One for the baby.

One for the man with the car.

That left one bullet.

She stumbled, then tripped. She reached out to try and stop her fall, but her bloody hands punched through the knee-deep snow. Her frigid hand hit an unseen rock, bringing more flaring, cold-numb pain, and she dropped headfirst through the white crust. She came up, wet snow and ice sticking to her exhausted face. Then she threw upagainblood gushing from her mouth to splash bright red against the white snow.

Blood, and a few wet chunks of something black.

Inside, it hurt. It hurt so bad.

She started to get up, then stopped and stared at the twin oak trees. They dominated a natural clearing, bare branches a sprawling, skeletal canopy at least fifty meters across. A few stubborn, dead leaves clung to the branches, fluttering slightly in the winter wind. She hadnt known what shed been looking for, just that she had to walk into the woods, deep into the woods, where people didnt go.

This was it, this was the place.

Such a long journey to wind up here. Shed taken the mans car back in Jackson. The man had said he wasnt la migra, wasnt the immigration police, but those people had chased her all her life and she knew better. He had stared at the gun, said he wasnt la migra, said he was just looking for a liquor store. Alida knew he was lying. She had seen it in his eyes. She had left him there, taken his car and driven through the night, then abandoned the car in Saginaw. There she hopped a freight train and just started watching for big woods. As long as she kept moving mostly north, it didnt matter.

Moving north, really, was the story of her life. The farther north you went, the fewer questions people asked. Childhood in Monclova, Mexico. Teenage years in Piedras Negras, then at nineteen she snuck across the border and started moving through Texas and beyond. Seven years of working, hiding, lying, always moving north. Shed met Luis in Chickasha, Oklahoma, then together they worked their way through America: St. Louis, Chicago, joining her mother in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A brief change, heading east when Luis found regular construction work in Jackson.

Then the itching started. And not long after, the urge to move north again. No, not just an urge, as it had been before.

The itching made it a mission.

But finally, after twenty-seven years of life, she could stop moving. She stared at the oak trees, the way they reached out to each other. Like lovers. Like husband and wife. She couldnt stop thinking of him anymore, couldnt stop thinking of her Luis. But it was okay now, because she could join him.

She looked back one more time. The thick, falling snow was already covering the comet path, turning the red to a fuzzy pink, soon to be all white again. La migra was looking for her, they wanted to kill herbut unless they were only fifteen or twenty minutes behind, her trail would soon be gone forever.

Alida turned again to stare at the trees one more time, the image a glorious sculpture in her brain.

This is the place.

She pulled the old .38 revolver out of her pocket and pressed the barrel against her temple.

When she pulled the trigger, her cold fingers worked just fine.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2008 by Scott Sigler

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Originally released in slightly different form as a podcast in 2006.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. for permission to reprint an excerpt from Ive Got You Under My Skin, words and music by Cole Porter, copyright 1936 by Cole Porter, copyright renewed and assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, trustee of the Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts Chappell & Co., owner of publication and allied rights throughout the world. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sigler, Scott.

Infected : a novel / Scott Sigler.1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Title.
PS3619.14725464 2008
813.6dc22 2007041037

eISBN: 978-0-307-40917-1

v1.0

For every good thing Ive ever done, every last success, I can look back and see exactly where my parents taught me that behavior or instilled the motivation that made it possible. All the stupid crap Ive pulled, well, somehow I managed to figure that out myself.