A Flock of Ill Omens Read Online Free PDF

gone.”
    “You'd do that?”
    Matt touched her chin with his thumb. “Who was the best man at your wedding?”
    “It didn't last long.”
    “It's who he was. Wasn't your fault and he never thought it was. I promise I won't take anything out of here but work stuff, but I gotta get rid of that.”
    They'd reached her car and she pulled the bandanna down. Sandy curls escaped her ponytail and she hugged him. “Thank you, Matt. You're a good man.”
    “No. Never as good as Pax. But I cared. I can do this for him.”
    And that wasn't a lie. There was no good reason to tell Pam he had a dozen other things to check out while he was there. Or that he had nowhere else to go. He'd planned to be out of the country for the next six months and had let his lease expire. This would work as a home base, at least for the next week or so.
     
    Matt used a blanket to leverage Pax out of the bathtub, then wrapped him in that, followed by a plastic tarp sealed with duct tape. Finally, he put a nicer sheet around him—less tacky than the plastic, even if it wasn't a proper coffin. Finally, he set off a bug bomb in the house, just the store-bought variety, but the strong version—no living thing inside for four hours. It was probably overkill—bleach would do it. But he figured nothing would remain alive inside, including whatever bio-hazard this might be. Because that's what this had to be. Something like Anthrax would have thrown up warnings that would allow it to be contained and there would have been a lot of noise about it—emails and texts to avoid the facility until it was clear. This had to be natural—perhaps spread in an unnatural way—but there was exposure, then an incubation period that had made it so no one knew until they were sick.
    While the bug bomb was blasting, Matt went for more normal supplies: food, and some basic hardware. He would do a thorough search; Pax probably had most of the stuff he would need, but who knew how long it would take him to find it? And at the moment, efficiency mattered. Something had killed almost his whole unit and he had to learn what because it was possible he might not be safe, either.
    The hardware store he went to was beginning to look picked over—another sign things were bad everywhere—but Matt managed to get all the things he needed. Once he was supplied, he called Pam to see if she'd had any luck reaching a coroner or some other official.
    “They won't call me back, but the hospital says to just contain him. It will be a while.”
    “Is that what you want to do? Wait?” he asked.
    “Not if there's a choice. It doesn't seem fair.”
    “Then I'll take care of things, like I said.”
    “Thank you.”
    He found a nice spot that looked like it wasn't too prone to erosion, nor to getting overgrown and lost in the quick-growing vegetation. He started digging. The sooner the body was buried, the better. Though he had Pam and Trevor to think about. They'd want to say their good-byes.
    And before they came out, Matt wanted to have the things he'd need to take with him out of the way. No use getting Pam into a tizzy with questions. He debated making contact with his brother. He'd left Teddy a satellite phone when he was arranging for his mission. His colleagues were mostly reliable, but it never hurt to have a back-up plan. Not that Teddy himself was much of a back-up. Poor kid took the world too seriously and couldn't quite handle it. That, or he'd gotten their mother's need to escape into a bottle now and then. But the kid did have a nose for digging up the truth, and some useful connections besides. As back-up went, those weren't terrible assets. But Matt wasn't ready for that yet. Better to check on his own resources first and find out what was what.
    When the grave was about half dug, Matt figured it had been long enough since the bug bomb had been set off to go inside and open up. Then, by the time he was finished with the grave, it would be clear for breathing and he could get