CHAPTER ONE
It had been
another great show, John Shepherd thought to himself. He carefully moved the
joystick on his control panel, slowly swiveling the camera mounted on the nose
of his helicopter, panning it across the cheering crowds below.
Many of the
onlookers were still cheering. Most were packing up their lawnchairs and
blankets after a long day of watching the annual air show and fireworks display
that kicked off the start of horse racing season in Louisville, KY.
Men, women and
children, families and couples, friends and strangers all celebrated along the banks
of the Ohio River--an all day long celebration that was one of the largest of
its kind in the nation.
John Shepherd
wondered what it would be like to see the huge fireworks show from the ground.
For the past eight years he'd watched it from the air, working as the cameraman
in a news helicopter.
High above the
crowds, he'd recorded year after year of celebrations--then celebrated himself
when he got his overtime check. It was hard work flying all day long in a
helicopter, every day for two weeks, covering first the fireworks, then the
parades, the steamboat races, and finally, the great race itself.
That was odd.
Shepherd
adjusted the controls for the camera mounted on the nose of the helicopter. He'd
been pulling back, getting a wider-angled view of the crowds as they slowly
dispersed. He did this every year, showing the slow build of traffic as tens of
thousands of people tried to make their way home.
Normally, the
tired revelers shuffled slowly to their cars, some carrying coolers, some
children. It was a slow exodus, everyone knowing it was futile to rush as the
roads would be clogged for hours.
But this year,
something was different. The crowds were running.
The fleeing
crowds were in full blown panic now. Many tripping and falling--falling in the
stampede of confused humanity. Shepherd imagined he could hear the screams that
went with this. He had to imagine, as in a noisy helicopter, with protective
headphones on, he couldn't even hear himself talk.
John pulled the
camera back quickly now, looking up from his screen and out the Plexiglas door
beside him. Was there a fire? Gunshots?
All he saw was
a cloud of smoke drifting in from the river--the after effects of all those
fireworks. This year the smoke was spreading out on both sides of the river.
This year-
The smoke was
brown?
Shepherd looked
back to his control panel. He'd never seen brown smoke before. The smoke was
always a dirty gray. And it was never this thick.
Shepherd zoomed
in on the ground, just ahead of the expanding smoke cloud. The camera under his
control was impressive--the best money could buy. Shepherd could read a
paperback with it at a thousand feet. The news channels wanted details when
they paid the high price of jetfuel to send a helicopter up.
His jaw dropped
when he saw the cloud sweep over a man who had fallen to the ground. The camera
clearly showed the panic in the man's face. Hell, Shepherd could make out the
name of the team on the man's faded ball cap: the Wildcats.
But despite the
clarity his advanced camera gave him, John Shepherd couldn't believe what he
was seeing. The fallen Wildcat fan below was turning to clay.
Like the brown
cloud increasing in density as it swept over the man, the fallen reveler's skin
was turning brown. And his eyes. And his teeth. Even his clothes turned a
dirty, clay-brown, dry and cracked. Then he was enveloped in the cloud and lost
from sight.
The helicopter
lurched suddenly and Shepherd's hand sent the control stick far to the right,
swinging the camera around and away from shore.
Shepherd looked
up and started reaching for the switch to communicate with his pilot up front.
That's when he noticed the dirty brown haze in the cabin of the helicopter.
Terror filled
the cameraman as he recognized the smoke from below. He glanced at his hand and
shuddered. It was turning brown.
***
Kenji Nakayama
watched the running lights of the helicopter as it spun out of control and
plummeted down toward the stampeding crowd. In the thick brown haze of smoke
spreading out from the river, the lights were faint, nearly masked out. Then a
brilliant ball of orange flashed as the helicopter struck something on the
ground and exploded.
The screams and
running feet were dying out now. Kenji looked over at the woman laying broken
on the pavement near his van. She had turned to brown, clay-like stone as she
ran. Then she had toppled over and shattered against the hard pavement.
"Go!"
Josie Winters said, tapping Kenji on the shoulder.
He nodded and
opened the doors at the rear of the big panel van. He grimaced as the brown
smoke swept into the van, passing over him. But his luck held and the
biological contamination suit he was wearing protected him.
Kenji could
hear his breath, echoing inside the plastic helmet. It fogged the faceplate of
the helmet a little. He realized he was almost hyperventilating.
"What the
hell is this stuff?" Jimmy Kane asked. Like Kenji, he was wearing a full
protection suit and helmet, hands and feet protected by gloves. Even the air they
breathed was cycled through a backpack unit and pumped fresh into their
helmets.
Jimmy, Kenji
and Josie had all been waiting quietly in the plain panel van parked on the lot
of a riverside restaurant. They had been there all day, enduring long, long hours
of waiting, remaining hidden.
"This
isn't petrification," Dr. Laura Olson said, crouched by the remains of the
shattered woman nearby. She was the last member of the little team that had
been stationed at the parking lot.
Dr. Olson picked
at the broken pieces of the victim with tweezers, stuffing samples into a Ziploc
bag.
"What
about her clothes?" Josie Winters asked.
The chill the
young girl felt up her back was very strange to Josie. She normally didn't feel
heat or cold. But this, this was enough to make the hairs stand up on the back
of her neck.
"Looks
like it only affects natural fibers," Dr. Olson said, lifting up a
polyester sleeve. Fragments of hardened clay-like material fell out, breaking
apart on the pavement like dried clods of dirt.
"Report!"
a man's voice called from out of the thick brown cloud.
Kenji looked
over and saw the dense brown smoke stirring as something moved through it.
Something that glowed a bright green.
Colonel Mark
Kenslir was not wearing a protective suit. Kenji wondered if any would even fit
him. Well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and arms like a lumberjack
he had short black hair cut in a military flattop. Piercing green-black eyes
were set in what should have been a pleasant face--if only the Colonel wasn't
always so serious and grim-looking. Even after all these months working together,
the big soldier still scared Kenji.
When Kenslir
stopped walking, the smoke around him seemed to fade away--as did the green glow
coming from his exposed skin. His khaki pants and black jacket were unphased by
the clay-colored smoke, just like the Colonel himself.
"I'm not
sure what this is, Mark," Dr. Olson said, standing. Subconsciously, she
reached up to brush at her long red hair. Instead, her gloved hand banged into
her helmet and she blushed a little.
"Josie?"
the Colonel asked, turning to his granddaughter--something he didn't look old
enough to have.
Josie Winters,
a twenty year old girl with a pretty face, jet black hair and the same
green-black eyes as Kenslir nodded and concentrated on a patch of smoke nearby.
The smoke moved, flowing downward to the pavement of the parking lot as it
rapidly cooled. "I don't think there's any moisture, sir. Just
smoke."
Kenslir reached
up and tapped an earpiece he wore. "Team 2, anything?"
"Same
thing over here," a voice responded. "Just like the Oracle predicted.
I think we're looking at a casualty rate in excess of three hundred thousand,
sir."
"We were
too late!" Jimmy Kane said in frustration, clenching his gloved hands.
Beneath the mop of straw-colored hair visible in his suit, his eyes went all
black as he snarled in anger.
"No
transforming!" Kenslir barked, startling the young man. "You rip that
suit, you could be good as dead, Mister."
Jimmy's eyes
resumed their normal sad, brown color and his shoulders relaxed. He took a deep
breath and regained control of his temper and his body. "Thanks,
boss."
"What
about you?" Kenslir said, looking at Kenji. "You seen enough
yet?"
The young Asian
gulped. "What do I say?" Kenji asked. He felt like throwing up as he
looked around at the hundreds of men, women and children dead around them,
broken and shattered into dirty brown pieces.
"The
fireworks, Nakayama," Kenslir said, frowning. "This happened the same
time as the fireworks."
Kenji looked up
into the sky, from where most of the smoke had fallen. "Yes, sir," he
said. Then he closed his eyes and ended the vision.
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