fault . He sat on his snowmobile and buckled on his snowshoes. He slung a small pack with survival gear and his .30-30 over his shoulder. It started to snow harder. If I hadn’t run into that damn runt accountant. I wouldn’t have run the machine so hard and blown the fuel pump . It had taken all his self-control not to deck the little fat guy.
He snowshoed across the field and over the rise. He decided to make a snow cave on the west side of the hill to take advantage of the cover. He continued up the rise, the .30-30 slapping his back. The snow was powdery and clean on the top of the rise, and, just underneath, he could feel it was hard, older snow. He could hear that odd crunching sound it makes when you break frozen snow late in the afternoon, after the sun goes down. He got to the top of the hill. He looked carefully for a good place to build the cave. He found a spot where the new snow had drifted deep near a stand of trees. He pulled out his small two-piece shovel from his pack. That was when he heard the first strange-sounding howl and turned around.
Below him, on the field he’d just come across, Chuck saw a gang of people running toward him. At first he thought he was dreaming, or that he’d gone crazy. They were running at him through the deep snow, across the empty field, all kinds of people: kids, old people, teenagers—too diverse a group to be search-and-rescue people. He thought he even saw a sheriff’s deputy. He wondered why they were running.
Why are they out here? He wondered where they’d come from as he watched them. Maybe they’re making a movie.
He smiled. That was it; they were making a movie. Then he heard the howling sound again. It went through him like a shot. He looked hard at the scores of people running across the field at him. Somehow it reminded him of the war. Some of the people stopped, squatted in the snow and tilted their heads back like coyotes. He watched them tilt their heads at a strange angle and begin howling, making a strange monkey-like howling sound. The sound was raw and sounded more like what chimpanzees might make, than humans. The howls echoed against the surrounding mountainsides.
“Fuck this.” Chuck instinctively un-slung his weapon and took a knee in the snow. “These things ain’t human.” Chuck Phelps pulled the hammer back on the .30-30 and waited for the first one to get close. “I knew something bad was coming,” he said out loud, not particularly frightened, and began to fire his weapon.
Mobbed by the monkey-like things, Chuck Phelps died standing up, fighting, using the .30-30—emptied of ammunition—as a club. The U.S. Marines would have been proud.
CHAPTER 5
“ This is not your grandmother’s tomato, ladies and gentlemen.” Genesoft’s PR man prattled on from the podium about something Genesoft was calling R19: the company’s long-awaited line of bio-engineered food products, including a salmon gene that was cross-referenced with the DNA of sugar beets and tomatoes, so the vegetables would produce omega-3 fatty acid. Time magazine declared the company one of the ten most innovative biotech firms in the world.
Miles Hunt watched the over-dressed PR man hold one of the genetically engineered vegetables in the air above his head, like an Olympian. Reporters from several of the state’s important dailies had come to Nevada City. The reporters had all been given a free breakfast and were now dutifully taping stories into their laptops, taking down the PR man’s words as if they were gospel.
A huge inflatable tomato-balloon floated above the crowded auditorium. R19 was painted on the balloon like a cute little label. It was corny and somehow frightening at the same time, Miles thought. He looked again at the pitchman, who was just warming up to his subject and looked to be on the verge of shouting at the audience à la Microsoft’s famous CEO, Steve Ballmer. The auditorium’s lights shone on the PR man’s gray Nordstrom’s suit,
He snowshoed across the field and over the rise. He decided to make a snow cave on the west side of the hill to take advantage of the cover. He continued up the rise, the .30-30 slapping his back. The snow was powdery and clean on the top of the rise, and, just underneath, he could feel it was hard, older snow. He could hear that odd crunching sound it makes when you break frozen snow late in the afternoon, after the sun goes down. He got to the top of the hill. He looked carefully for a good place to build the cave. He found a spot where the new snow had drifted deep near a stand of trees. He pulled out his small two-piece shovel from his pack. That was when he heard the first strange-sounding howl and turned around.
Below him, on the field he’d just come across, Chuck saw a gang of people running toward him. At first he thought he was dreaming, or that he’d gone crazy. They were running at him through the deep snow, across the empty field, all kinds of people: kids, old people, teenagers—too diverse a group to be search-and-rescue people. He thought he even saw a sheriff’s deputy. He wondered why they were running.
Why are they out here? He wondered where they’d come from as he watched them. Maybe they’re making a movie.
He smiled. That was it; they were making a movie. Then he heard the howling sound again. It went through him like a shot. He looked hard at the scores of people running across the field at him. Somehow it reminded him of the war. Some of the people stopped, squatted in the snow and tilted their heads back like coyotes. He watched them tilt their heads at a strange angle and begin howling, making a strange monkey-like howling sound. The sound was raw and sounded more like what chimpanzees might make, than humans. The howls echoed against the surrounding mountainsides.
“Fuck this.” Chuck instinctively un-slung his weapon and took a knee in the snow. “These things ain’t human.” Chuck Phelps pulled the hammer back on the .30-30 and waited for the first one to get close. “I knew something bad was coming,” he said out loud, not particularly frightened, and began to fire his weapon.
Mobbed by the monkey-like things, Chuck Phelps died standing up, fighting, using the .30-30—emptied of ammunition—as a club. The U.S. Marines would have been proud.
CHAPTER 5
“ This is not your grandmother’s tomato, ladies and gentlemen.” Genesoft’s PR man prattled on from the podium about something Genesoft was calling R19: the company’s long-awaited line of bio-engineered food products, including a salmon gene that was cross-referenced with the DNA of sugar beets and tomatoes, so the vegetables would produce omega-3 fatty acid. Time magazine declared the company one of the ten most innovative biotech firms in the world.
Miles Hunt watched the over-dressed PR man hold one of the genetically engineered vegetables in the air above his head, like an Olympian. Reporters from several of the state’s important dailies had come to Nevada City. The reporters had all been given a free breakfast and were now dutifully taping stories into their laptops, taking down the PR man’s words as if they were gospel.
A huge inflatable tomato-balloon floated above the crowded auditorium. R19 was painted on the balloon like a cute little label. It was corny and somehow frightening at the same time, Miles thought. He looked again at the pitchman, who was just warming up to his subject and looked to be on the verge of shouting at the audience à la Microsoft’s famous CEO, Steve Ballmer. The auditorium’s lights shone on the PR man’s gray Nordstrom’s suit,
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