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“OmahG.o.domahG.o.d!”

He ignored the missing fingers, the blowtorch sensation. What else could he do? He ignored them and yanked the door open and scrambled out of the car. His blackened fingers fell off his lap and bounced on the icy pavement. The rain had stopped. Donny ran straight for the nearest s...o...b..nk, now a shriveled thing all crusted with ice. Crying, screaming, he kicked at it with his foot to break the crust, then jammed his blackened hand through the hole and into the snow. His hand burned. He had to cool it off, but the snow didn’t make it any better.

Another cough hit, this one deep, from way inside his stomach. Hot blood gushed into his mouth. He tasted chunks of something rotten, chunks that burned his tongue. The whole mess spilled onto the icy white s...o...b..nk, covering it with bright red and wet black. Donny Jewell fell over on his side. Pain overwhelmed him, jabbing into his body from every possible angle.

He just wanted to go to sleep again.

The next cough yanked him into a fetal position. More red and black sprayed out of his mouth. Something inside broke. He knew it, not from increased pain, but when his stomach muscles seemed to suddenly relax, like he’d been curled up by a rubber band that had just snapped.

He could still hear his daughter screaming.

The last thought he had was a hope that her face would clear up in time for senior pictures.

CHEFFIE

Cheffie Jones awoke to find himself under the living-room carpet.

He had two infections. One on his left collarbone, one just under his Adam’s apple. The skin between them had blackened and sagged, the necrosis spreading toward his face, down his chest and deeper into his throat.

Before he died, Cheffie had just enough time to flip the carpet back and wonder why he hurt so bad. While he’d slept, the apoptosis had weakened his carotid artery, which gave way at that exact moment. Just one tiny hole at first, enough for blood to squirt out into the blackened sludge surrounding it. He was in so much pain he didn’t even notice the difference. The first pinhole became a second, then a third, and then blood pressure against the thin artery wall ripped open a hole the size of a pencil eraser.

Blood sprayed all through his throat. A few thin jets pushed out through the black rot, but most of it just shot around inside his body. He gurgled as he breathed it in. Blood filled alveoli and soon reduced the ability of his lungs to draw oxygen.

He couldn’t scream, because his vocal cords had dissolved right before his carotid gave way. He managed to stumble to the front door and open it; then he fell. He tried to crawl, but it wasn’t very effective—Cheffie hadn’t been in good shape to start with, and without oxygen his muscles shut down right quick. He got to his knees, struggled to get one hand out the front door, then fell again.

Cheffie Jones stopped moving. He had drowned in his own blood.

The apoptosis chain reaction continued.

THE SONOFAb.i.t.c.h