“Hey!” Trout yelled, throwing caution away. “Who’s in there? What the hell are you doing?”
He pounded his fist on the door.
Inside a child
cried out.
“Open the door, goddamn it…”
The cry of the child changed. Just like that.
It became a scream and overlaid with it was the low, hungry, unmistakable moan of the living dead.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
WHAT THE FINKE THINKS
WTLK LIVE TALK RADIO
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
“We have Teddy on the line,” said Gavin. “Welcome aboard the crazyboat, Teddy. Tells the Finke what you think.”
“Hey, listen man, I got to make this quick.”
“Take all the time you need, Teddy.”
“No, seriously, I only have a minute, but I needed to get this out. I needed to tell someone what’s really going on out here.”
“And what is happening out there?”
“This whole thing, all the deaths, the stories about people attacking each other, about people going crazy and killing each other and eating each other? Those aren’t stories, man. That’s happening. It’s happening right now.”
“‘Eating each other,’ Teddy?”
“It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing,” said Gavin. “But I also don’t understand. Who’s eating whom?”
“The people who get this thing, this disease, they die, but then they come back right away. So it’s not like they’re really dead. They get up and start going crazy. You can’t talk to them. They don’t react the way people do. They’re really out of it. All they want to do is eat people.”
“And that’s what you say is happening in Stebbins County? People running around eating each other?”
“That’s definitely what’s happening.”
“And how do you know this, Teddy?”
“I’m here, man. I’m right here in Stebbins. My whole unit is here. And we’re under orders to hunt the infected down and … and shoot them.”
Before Gavin could ask for clarification and verification, the line went dead.
The producer grinned through the glass and twirled his finger by his temple. Another loony. Gavin had to agree, but it was loonies that paid the light bill. He punched another button.
“We have Samantha from Evans, Pennsylvania. Hi, Samantha, tell the Finke what you think.”
“It’s bigfoot…” she said.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX