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you and fuck that zero tolerance bullshit. We were trying to save lives. We would have gotten something out of that man.”
    “You didn’t get shit from the first two.”
    Now it was his turn to say nothing. After a minute he narrowed his eyes. “When you spoke to that…that… thing. That woman. At the end, you gave her a blessing. You a Muslim?”
    “No.”
    “Then why?”
    “Honestly, Sergeant, I don’t think I could explain it to you. I mean…I could explain it, but I don’t think you’d understand.”
    “You think I’m a monster, don’t you?”
    “Are you?”
    “No, man,” he said. “I’m just trying to….” And his voice broke. At first it was just a hitch, but when he tried to catch it and hide it, his resolve broke and he put his face in his unbandaged hand and sobbed. I sat back in my chair and watched.
    I looked at him. The bandages on his other hand were stained with blood that was almost black. Red lines ran in a crooked tracery from beneath the bandage and up his arms. I could see the same dark lines beginning to creep up from his collar. It was forty-eight hours since he’d been brought to the aide station. Fifty-nine since Amirah had bitten him. Strong son of a bitch. Most people would have turned by now.
    “What’s going to happen to me?” he asked, raising a tear-streaked face.
    “Nothing. It’s already happened.”
    He licked his dry lips. “We…we didn’t know.”
    “Yes you did. Your squad was briefed. Maybe it was all a little unreal to you, Sergeant. Horror movie stuff. But you knew . Just as you know how this ends.”
    I stood and drew my sidearm and racked the slide. The sound was enormous in that little room.
    “They’re going to want to study you,” I said. “They can do that with you on a slab, or in a cage.”
    “They can’t!” he said, anger flaring inside his pain. “I’m an American god damn it!”
    “No,” I said. “Sergeant Andy Harper died while on a mission in Afghanistan. The report will reflect that he died while serving his country and maintaining the best traditions of the U.S. Marine Corps.”
    Harper looked at me, the truth registering in his eyes.
    “So I ask you,” I said, raising the pistol. “This…or paradise?”
    “I…I’m sorry,” he said. Maybe at that moment he really was. Deathbed epiphanies aren’t worth the breath that carries them. Not to me. Not anymore.
    “I know,” I lied.
    “I did it for us , man. I did it to help!”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
    And raised the gun
     
    ~The End~
     

 
     
Deep Dark
     
     
    NOTE: This story takes place after the events of Patient Zero . It is an independent adventure.
     
    Chap. 1
     
    The Vault
    Ultra High Security Biological Research Facility
    The Poconos, Pennsylvania
    Twenty Minutes Ago
     
    It was the dirty end of a dirty job.
    Three of us—Bunny, Top and I—were hunting horrors in the dark, seven thousand feet below Camelback Mountain. Even with night vision goggles, body armor, and weapons, we were lost in an infinity of shadows. If we blew this, if we couldn’t wrap this before the clock ticked down, then the whole place would go into hard lockdown. Steel doors would drop, and explosive bolts would fire, triggering thermite charges that would seal the doors permanently in place. Federal and international biohazard protocols forbade anyone from digging us out if the failsafes went active.
    The Vault would become our tomb.
    The government would disown us; our own people would have to write us off.
    But the things we hunted wouldn’t care. When our lights and weapons and food ran out, they’d hunt us.
    And, very likely, they would get us…and then get out.
     
    Chap. 2
     
    Camelback Mountain
    Pocono Plateau, Elevation 2,133 Feet
    Two Hours Ago
     
    We touched down on a State Forestry helipad at the top of Camelback. Morning mist still clung to the off-season ski slopes. The sun was a weak promise behind a ceiling of white clouds that stretched into the dim