"You know," he said, staring at her when she finished, "if I hadn't seen what I've seen in the past thirty minutes, I'd think you were on crack."

"It's somehow contagious," she said, her mind racing. "But is it airborne like a flu, or does it need an open wound?"

"Everybody I put down was bloodied in one way or another." He pointed to the dead thing on the floor. "Him too. Look at his neck."

Shanna shot a quick glance, then away. The red-and-gray lumpy spray on the wall behind it made her want to gag.

"Then it's like HIV."

Clay looked disgusted. "You mean those things go around raping--?"

"No-no! Bites. Think vampires and werewolves."

"Oh. Makes sense."

"But it's happening so fast." An awful thought struck. "Do you know what a geometric progression is?"

His mouth twisted. "Would you believe...no?"

"It's a way an infection can spread to astronomical numbers. Mortimer infects one, and so then there are two infected. If they each infect one more, we've got four infected. Then eight, then sixteen. By the fifteenth go-round they've infected almost fifty-thousand people. By the twentieth, we're past the million mark."

Clay paled. "We can't let these things out of here."

She shook her head. "Not even one of them."

"But you're getting out of here."

"How?"

"I'm taking you down to my truck, giving you the key, and you're driving the hell home."

That sounded absolutely wonderful. But...

"What about you?"

"Gotta stay till reinforcements arrive. I'll patrol the outside and contain the perimeter."

"Just you?"

He shrugged. "Wish I had help, but I don't see anyone else around to do it, so I guess that leaves me."

Just like the heroes in those movies he loved to watch--and quote. Was that what he was doing--quoting? If so, she didn't recognize it. No, this was just Clay, who he was.

"You could get hurt."

"Yeah, but--"

A hiss from the doorway. They both turned at once to see one of the creatures charging. Almost upon them. Shanna screamed.

Clay fired his auto-shotgun from the hip. Two quick blasts to the chest knocked it back but not down. He raised it to his shoulder. His third shot blew away half its head and it crumbled.

"Gotta get you out of here."

"I'm all for that."

But somewhere inside a voice said, You'll never make it.

"You're gonna need some heat," he said.

"Heat?"

"A weapon. A gun."

"No, I--"

"Don't argue, Shanna. It can be the difference between life and death."

She wanted to tell him she hated guns, that they terrified her, but she could see he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

He pulled something big and silvery from his belt.

"This here is Alice. A Taurus Raging--"

"Wait-wait-wait. You named it?"

"Well, sure. She's special."

Well, sure...like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"But it's a woman's name."

"Of course."

"No. Not 'of course.' Why a woman's name?"

He got a sheepish look. "You don't want to know."

"Yeah, I do. Humor me."

"Well, when my daddy was teaching me to shoot he always said never pull the trigger, always squeeze it like..."

"Like what?"

He sighed and looked away. "Like your girlfriend's tit."

"Your father said that?"

"Uh-huh."

"How old were you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Seven or eight."

"Did you even have a girlfriend?"

"No, but I gathered he meant slow and easy."

Note to self: Never meet Clay's daddy.

"But anyway," he went on, "Alice is a Taurus Raging Bull, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow a head clean off."

That sounded familiar, almost like--

"You're not quoting Dirty Harry, are you?"

He looked sheepish. "Well, not exactly. His was a forty-four Magnum."

"This isn't the time for Clint Eastwood fanboy stuff, Clay. Dirty Harry is a made-up character in a movie. This is real."

He gave her a funny look. "I know that, Shanna. But it...helps, okay? Because I gotta tell you, Harry Callahan seems more real to me right now than what I've seen here today."

She couldn't argue with that.

He hefted the huge silver pistol. "Alice here fires a heavy-duty, four-fifty-four Casull, even more powerful than Harry's forty-four Mag." He held it toward her.

She raised her hands, palms out, shoulder high. "No, I can't."

"Just till we get to the truck, okay? Please, Shanna? Just to the truck."

Well...

"Okay. Just to the truck."

She took it and it immediately dragged down her arms.

"God, it's heavy."

"Make sure you hold her with both hands and get ready for a helluva kick. Wait till you can't miss and aim for the head. The muzzle velocity of the round is so high it cuts through a skull like paper and the shockwave of the impact purees the brain."

She couldn't help making a face. "Lovely."

"One hit from Alice is enough. Don't waste them. I didn't bring many Casulls."

She raised the pistol with both hands to eye level. So heavy. She wished she'd been working out.

Suddenly a hissing face out of a nightmare, all bloody fangs and tongue and black eyes appeared at the other end of the barrel. Shanna screamed and pulled the trigger. The gun lurched toward the ceiling with such force it toppled her over backward. She almost lost her grip on it but managed to keep hold.

Still screaming she rolled and rose to her knees, ready to fire again, but the thing lay flat on its back in the hall. It had a hole where its nose once resided and a widening halo of red spreading out beneath its skull.

"Great shot!" Clay said, grinning like a proud father.

She stared at the dead creature. "I did that?"

"You sure did! You killed the hell out of that fella!"

That too sounded familiar. "Unforgiven?"

He shrugged. "Sorry." He helped her to her feet. "You okay?"

"Not sure."

She stared down at the dead creature. "That fella" wasn't a fella. It wore a bloodstained maroon pantsuit. She stepped closer and saw the nametag: Marge McGuire.

Shanna felt sick. "That's Marge from admitting! I had a long sit-down with her when Mortimer was admitted for that possible overdose. She had pictures of her kids on her desk. She..." A sob broke free. "What have I done?"

"It was her or you, Shanna."

"I killed Marge!"

Clay knelt beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "That wasn't Marge from admissions anymore. Marge was already gone. You killed something else, something that had taken her over."

"But her kids--"

"Had already lost their mama. You just kept this thing from fouling her memory by killing you and who knows how many others, and turning them into things like her. You did Marge a favor."

Clay seemed to understand and was making sense, neither of which she'd expected from him. But she couldn't take her eyes off the thing Marge had become.

"No need to watch her," Clay said. "She's down for good."