Cell: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

cop, but would have been more frightened still if the cop’s hands had been steady. And what had just happened was no isolated case. The gunshot seemed to have done something to Clay’s hearing, cleared a circuit in it or something. Now he could hear other gunshots, isolated cracks punctuating the escalating cacophony of the day.
    The cop took a card—Clay thought it was a business card—from the slim leather case, then put the case back in his breast pocket. He held the card between the first two fingers of his left hand while his right hand once more dropped to the butt of his service weapon. Near his highly polished shoes, blood from the lunatic’s shattered head was pooling on the sidewalk. Close by, Power Suit Woman lay in another pool of blood, which was now starting to congeal and turn a darker shade of red.
    “What’s your name, sir?” the cop asked Clay.
    “Clayton Riddell.”
    “Can you tell me who the president is?”
    Clay told him.
    “Sir, can you tell me today’s date?”
    “It’s the first of October. Do you know what’s—”
    The cop looked at the little man with the mustache. “Your name?”
    “I’m Thomas McCourt, 140 Salem Street, Maiden. I—”
    “Can you name the man who ran against the president in the last election?”
    Tom McCourt did so.
    “Who is Brad Pitt married to?”
    McCourt threw up his hands. “How should I know? Some movie star, I think.”
    “Okay.” The cop handed Clay the card he’d been holding between his fingers. “I’m Officer Ulrich Ashland. This is my card. You may be called on to testify about what just happened here, gentlemen. What happened was you needed assistance, I rendered it, I was attacked, I responded.”
    “You wanted to kill him,” Clay said.
    “Yes, sir, we’re putting as many of them out of their misery as fast as we can,” Officer Ashland agreed. “And if you tell any court or board of inquiry that I said that, I’ll deny it. But it has to be done. These people are popping up everywhere. Some only commit suicide. Many others attack.” He hesitated, then added: “So far as we can tell, all the others attack.” As if to underline this, there was another gunshot from across the street, a pause, then three more, in rapid succession, from the shadowed forecourt of the Four Seasons Hotel, which was now a tangle of broken glass, broken bodies, crashed vehicles, and spilled blood. “It’s like the fucking Night of the Living Dead.” Officer Ulrich Ashland started back toward Boylston Street with his hand still on the butt of his gun. “Except these people aren’t dead. Unless we help them, that is.”
    “Rick!” It was a cop on the other side of the street, calling urgently. “Rick, we gotta go to Logan! All units! Get over here!”
    Officer Ashland checked for traffic, but there was none. Except for the wrecks, Boylston Street was momentarily deserted. From the surrounding area, however, came the sound of more explosions and automotive crashes. The smell of smoke was getting stronger. He started across the street, got halfway, then turned back. “Get inside somewhere,” he said. “Get under cover. You’ve been lucky once. You may not be lucky again.”
    “Officer Ashland,” Clay said. “Your guys don’t use cell phones, do you?”
    Ashland regarded him from the center of Boylston Street—not, in Clay’s opinion, a safe place to be. He was thinking of the rogue Duck Boat. “No, sir,” he said. “We have radios in our cars. And these.” He patted the radio in his belt, hung opposite his holster. Clay, a comic-book fiend since he could read, thought briefly of Batman’s marvelous utility belt.
    “Don’t use them,” Clay said. “Tell the others. Don’t use the cell phones.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because they were.” He pointed to the dead woman and the unconscious girl. “Just before they went crazy. And I’ll bet you anything that the guy with the knife—”
    “Rick!” the cop on the other side