Fear Nothing

art,” Bobby said. He held out the leather holder with the speedloaders. “Here's your dump pouch.”
        Sasha took it from him and snapped it onto her belt.
        I said, “Father Tom's sister was an associate of my mother's.”
        Bobby said, “Mad-scientist-blow-up-the-world type?”
        “No explosives are involved. But, yeah, and now she's infected.”
        “Infected.” He grimaced. “Do we really have to get into this?”
        “Yeah. But it's way complex. Genetics.”
        “Big-brain stuff. Boring.”
        “Not this time.”
        Far out to sea, bright arteries of lightning pulsed in the sky and a low throb of thunder followed.
        Sasha had also purchased a cartridge belt designed for duck hunters and skeet shooters, and Bobby began to stuff shotgun shells into the leather loops.
        “Father Tom's infected, too,” I said, putting one of the spare 9-millimeter magazines in my shirt pocket.
        “Are you infected?” Bobby asked.
        “Maybe. My mom had to be. And Dad was.”
        “How's it passed?”
        “Bodily fluids,” I said, standing the other two magazines behind a fat red candle on the table, where they could not be seen from the windows. “And maybe other ways.”
        Bobby looked at Sasha, who was transferring the pizzas to baking sheets.
        She shrugged and said, “If Chris is, then I am.”
        “We've been holding hands for over a year,” I told Bobby.
        “You want to heat your own pizza?” Sasha asked him.
        “Nah. Too much trouble. Go ahead and infect me.”
        I closed the box of ammo and put it on the floor. My pistol was still in my jacket, which hung on the back of my chair.
        As Sasha continued preparing the pizzas, I said, “Orson might not be infected, exactly. I mean, he might be more like a carrier or something.”
        Passing a shotgun shell between his fingers and across his knuckles, like a magician rolling a coin, Bobby said, “So when does the pus and puking start?”
        “It's not a disease in that sense. It's more a process.”
        Lightning flared again. Beautiful. And too brief to do any damage to me.
        “Process,” Bobby mused.
        “You're not actually sick. Just… changed.”
        Sliding the pizzas into the oven to reheat them, Sasha said, “So who owned the shirt before you did?”
        Bobby said, “Back in the fifties? Who knows?”
        “Were dinosaurs alive then?” I wondered.
        “Not many,” Bobby said.
        Sasha said, “What's it made of?”
        “Rayon.”
        “Looks in perfect condition.”
        “You don't abuse a shirt like this,” Bobby said solemnly, “You treasure it.”
        At the refrigerator, I plucked out bottles of Corona for every one but Orson. Because of his body weight, the mutt can usually handle one beer without getting sloppy, but this night he needed to keep a totally clear head. The rest of us actually needed the brew; calming our nerves a little would increase our effectiveness.
        As I stood beside the sink, popping the caps off the beers, lightning tore at the sky again, unsuccessfully trying to rip rain in out of the clouds, and in the flash I saw three hunched figures racing from one dune to another.
        “They're here,” I said, bringing the beers to the table.
        “They always need a while to get up their nerve,” Bobby said.
        “I hope they give us time for dinner.”
        “I'm starved,” Sasha agreed.
        “Okay, so what're the basic symptoms of this not-disease, this process?” Bobby asked. “Do we end up looking like we have gnarly oak fungus?”
        “Some may degenerate psychologically like Stevenson,” I said. “Some may change physically, too, minor ways. Maybe in major ways, for all I know. But it sounds as if each case is different. Maybe some people aren't affected, or not so you'd notice, and then others really change .”
        As Sasha fingered the sleeve of Bobby's shirt, admiring it, he said, “The pattern's a Eugene Savage mural called Island Feast .
        “The buttons are fully stylin',” she said, in the mood now.
        “Totally stylin',” Bobby agreed, rubbing his thumb over one of the yellow-brown, striated buttons, smiling with the pride of a passionate collector and with pleasure at the sensuous texture. “Polished coconut shell.”
        Sasha got a stack of paper napkins from a drawer and brought them to