Anvil Read Online Free Page B

felt warmer.
    Pushing on,
fighting the wind, I wanted to sit down and rest.  Just for a few
minutes.  But I wouldn’t let myself stop.  There was a part of me
that still had enough awareness to recognize the danger of stopping.  A
part that knew if I sat down I’d never get up again.  Wherever I sat would
be my final resting place.
    Then the
hallucinations began.  Katie suddenly appeared right in front of me. 
She didn’t speak, just stood in the steadily falling snow and looked at
me.  I reached for her but she stepped away before turning and walking off
in a new direction.  I called out to her, but she didn’t respond.
    Forcing my
frozen legs to move, I followed.  I called her name and reached for her,
but she was too far in front and ignored me.  Just kept walking, her long,
red hair whipping in the wind.  A couple of times she looked over her
shoulder to make sure I was still there and my heart leapt when I didn’t see
red eyes.  She was OK!  But why wasn’t she talking to me?
    I tried to
put on enough speed to catch her, but she easily outpaced me.  Stumbling,
I fell face first into the snow, unable to look up when she screamed.  I
heard her race away into the storm when I called her name.  With a supreme
effort of will, I pushed myself up and tried to follow my wife.  I was
taking a step to pursue when Rachel suddenly appeared in front of me, wrapped
her arms around my shoulders and pulled me down towards the ground.

5
     
    “There, sir.” 
    Petty
Officer Jessica Simmons pointed at a spot on the large display.  Admiral
Packard, his aide and Jessica’s CO, Lieutenant Hunt, stood behind her and
looked where she indicated.  The giant, flat panel monitor showed a pallet
of greys with two red blobs.  They were watching a thermal image of Idaho,
having tracked Major Chase and his companions after the havoc he had unleashed
on the Russians.
    One of the
red blobs was following the other.  The one in the lead was bright red and
easily followed.  The one behind enough cooler for the difference to be
detectable by satellite.  They came to a stop and Jessica zoomed the
image. 
    After a
moment, the hotter of the two bodies raced away to the northwest, leaving the
other where it was.  Then a third person appeared, glowing bright red. 
The new arrival merged with the one that had been left behind.
    “Where the
hell did that one come from?”  Packard asked, riveted to the image.
    “Must have
been under or in some sort of shelter, sir,” Jessica replied as the two blobs
began to move, then disappeared from the display.
    “They’re
screened from the bird, sir.” 
    Jessica zoomed
back out.  The person who had led the way was still moving fast and
Jessica used her mouse to draw a box around the blob.  She marked it as
target Bravo. 
    The system’s
software would continue to track the target as long as it was visible.  A
new window opened in the display and began scrolling data related to the
target.  The location, direction of travel and speed on the ground were
continually updated.
    “I think
that must be an infected female, sir,” Jessica said, peering at the data
scrolling through the smaller window.
    “Explain,”
Lieutenant Hunt said.
    “The speed,
sir.  She’s moving at a steady twenty miles an hour.  That’s damn
fast.  Too fast for an infected male and too fast for an uninfected person
unless they’re a professional athlete.  I’ve seen some of the females hit
twenty-five miles an hour for short distances, and that’s… uh oh.”
    The red blob
suddenly slowed to three miles an hour before also disappearing from the view
of the orbiting thermal imager.  Jessica’s fingers flew across the
keyboard, the displayed image rotating through several colors as she tried to
reacquire the target with different light and heat spectrums, but she was
unsuccessful.
    “We’ve lost
her for the moment, sir, but the system will keep watching the point where she
disappeared and lock