“Let them go,” a voice said. Low, dry, and cold, but a woman’s voice. Murdo had heard that voice before. An iron fist clenched itself around his heart.
My fucking God
, he thought.
Back from the dead
.
“I guess we didn’t finish you off,” Murdo said, trying for a jaunty tone of voice. He wanted to get a little patronizing chuckle in there, but it came out as a kind of click in the back of his throat. He swallowed. His mouth was dry. She couldn’t possibly still be alive.
“Let them go and I let you live,” the voice said. Murdo found himself studying the grotesque vehicle down the street. Was it wired up with explosives? Suicide bomb? Was there a rocket launcher on the back? He couldn’t
see anything. He cut his eyes up around the rooftops. Could be a trap. Could be that sniper was still around.
“Quit bluffing with us, bitch,” Murdo said. He was letting his nerves get away from him. He was sitting inside an impregnable steel fortress. Even rockets wouldn’t be effective against the mighty M1117. Even a car bomb. Somebody might pick off Estevez up in the turret, but Murdo was untouchable.
“Get on the horn to Backup One,” Murdo called up to Estevez. “Tell them to look for a sniper. Tell them to light up anything that moves.”
Estevez relayed the message on his satellite radio. Ace and Flamingo were back in the Humvee; with Flamingo on the heavy machine gun, Murdo had a further tactical advantage. Anybody who exposed him- or herself to attack the ASV would have to face annihilation from the Humvee.
“You got ten seconds,” the woman on the radio said.
She has balls
, Murdo thought.
At least one aspect of her plan worked like a charm. Danny had watched the women troop past the alley entrance. Amy was out front. Danny’s heart heated up at the sight of her, maybe the last sight she’d have. Then the ASV went past, its huge wheels turning slowly. Nobody saw her. They wouldn’t. She had thrown a couple of hotel bedspreads over the roof of the interceptor and parked it in the shade of a carport, well up the alley; it was only another abandoned vehicle in a town full of them. This interceptor was the one she had parked on the scenic outlook during her first foray into Potter, leaving it behind in favor of the Mustang. Nobody had molested the vehicle in the interim; it slept beneath the blue tarpaulin, dreaming of high-speed chases. It was a damn good car. Almost—but not quite—a pity to destroy it.
A few seconds after the ASV, the Hummer crept into view. And stopped—three-quarters of its length exposed to the alley. The driver’s door was dead center of the intersection.
There was a man up on the machine gun, and a man at the wheel. Danny could see their faces. She could see their mouths moving. She watched as the gunner spoke on his walkie-talkie. So they were, of course, strategizing their next move, while Murdo, the boss, kept her on the radio. She was using the radio in
her
car, but of course, Murdo didn’t know that. Danny had to time this thing right.
If she waited too long, Murdo would instruct his man on the cannon to blast the customized police special apart, which would mean firing right
over the heads of the women hostages, or possibly through them. If Danny attacked too soon, they might still have the advantage of adrenaline, and get a bead on her. She was delaying only long enough for them to become accustomed to the situation, letting them focus their attention ahead, put their machines into neutral gear, maybe even switch off the motors.
The decoy was turning out to be useful, after all. Murdo thought he was talking to the figure inside the custom special, the one wearing the Smokey hat. He couldn’t possibly know it was a living corpse, handcuffed to the steering wheel.
The idea was to crush the Humvee’s driver, then shoot the gunner before he could bring the .50 caliber machine gun around. If she could still move after that, Danny was going to draw fire from the ASV. The women were going to escape. She was in the groove now, like a sniper with the target in her sights, finger compressing the trigger, a couple of foot-pounds of pressure away from making the shot with the target completely unawares.
And then a new variable entered the situation.
As one, the crows rose up.
Amy saw it at the same moment. All over town, the crows started clacking and cawing and flapped into the air. Survivors, those birds. They would be the dominant species someday. When Amy saw them take flight, she knew the danger was no longer from the cannon mounted on the rolling castle behind her. It was somewhere out there in town, not far away, coming closer. Possibly all around them. Where were the undead? She knew the place ought to be swarming, and yet she and her fellow survivors were the only bipeds standing.
The vehicles had stopped behind them, and Tattoo-Face had told them to stop, so they did, but now they were just standing around like idiots, out in the open. They were staring at the strange police car. It looked like some squat, prehistoric swamp creature, snouted like an alligator.
At first, Amy thought it was some crazy local yokel playing
Road Warrior
to pass the time of day. Then she thought,
Maybe it’s Danny
. But the figure inside the car, although difficult to make out behind the wire mesh and steel pipe, didn’t move like Danny. It almost appeared to be struggling. Besides, Danny was dead.
“Hey, guys?” Amy said, keeping her back to the ASV and her eyes on the custom police special.
“Yeah.” It was Becky who answered, but the other women stopped whispering among themselves.
“Couple of things,” Amy went on. “First thing, we got this cop in front of us and Turdo behind us, so I think there might be some shooting. Don’t move—” She added this when she heard feet scuffling in the dirt on the pavement. “Don’t do anything sudden.”
It was important she keep her voice level and even, so nobody panicked, but they needed to do what she said.
“What I think we better get ready to do is run both ways, okay? Side to side. If you run down the middle of the street they’ll get you. And everybody scatter. Go a different way. We can get out of sight in a jiffy if we go left and right behind these buildings.”
“When do we run?” a voice hissed. It was Linda Maas. She was clutching Michelle and Jimmy James to her bosom, frightening them even further.
“I’m not done,” Amy said. “There’s another thing. See those crows? They fly away when there’s zombies around.”
“They just did,” said Pfeiffer, her voice cracking with fear.
“Yes they did,” Amy continued, her tone as level as she could muster. “Crows just love to do that. So
when
you run, don’t run off anywhere you can’t get out of. Okay? Just get away from these bad guys behind us. If I were you I’d double back the way we came in.”
It felt as if they had been standing in the street for a long time. In reality it was under a minute since Murdo had called the procession to a halt. But with every second that passed, they got closer to something happening. The crows told Amy that. Even if the shooting never started, something else was going to happen. The shooting, however, was sure to begin—and soon.
“Amy?” It was Michelle. So far Amy had kept her feelings out of the situation. It was a simple matter of survival, like trying to get control of a car that was skidding on ice. When Michelle spoke, it added a personal element. She was reminded there were kids in the backseat of the skidding car. Amy took a breath. So little time left.
“Yeah.”
“Should me and Jimmy James go the same way or should we scatter?”
“You two scatter in the same direction.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Amy thought she might choke up, if the girl didn’t stop talking. Although Amy was facing the wrong way to see anybody except the odd shape of the cop inside the custom car, she could picture
Michelle, her scabby knees, the blue hair with the pale roots starting to show.
The crows reached altitude and circled over town, the vultures above them, wheeling in the upper atmosphere. Any second now.
“Amy?” It was Becky again.
“You guys ready?” Amy was tensing to run, although she hadn’t altered her posture.
“Hang on, Amy. Uh…Who’s that?”
Amy looked over her shoulder. Becky was holding her friend by the shoulder; Amy couldn’t remember the friend’s name. She was pointing off toward the hotel. Amy followed her line of sight. She saw it, too. There was someone watching them from the parking lot of the hotel, crouched behind a minivan. Amy looked around again at the silent town. There was someone else hiding up there in the park. A couple of people. Watching, motionless, hunkered down among the dead bushes.
“There,” said Linda Maas. Amy looked where she was pointing. Beneath one of the dust-coated cars on Main Street beyond the police cruiser, the dark shape of a pair of feet was visible. There were others, too. The scene looked empty at a glance, but they were far from alone. Amy wondered who they were, and why they were taking this risk.
“Don’t point,” she said. “Don’t let Turdo know they’re here.”
“There’s something weird about them,” Jimmy James said, in his small, flute voice. Amy saw it, too. They all saw it.
It crossed Amy’s mind that things might have gone from bad to infinitely worse.
Inside the ASV, Murdo was sweating and angry. There was always some fucking thing. He made an executive decision.
“You know what?” he said. “Fuck it. Estevez, open fire.”
Danny glanced at the crows fluttering up in the air.
A murder of crows
, she remembered.
A muster of storks, a parliament of owls
. Amy had taught her those terms.
A swarm of zeros
.
She couldn’t tell which way the threat was coming from; the crows lacked discipline. They took to the air without direction. Which could also mean the threat came from everywhere. In practical terms, what this meant for Danny was she was out of time. She reached her good hand to the ignition key, preparing to twist it and fire up the engine. The men in the
Humvee were looking anywhere but her position. She could make the distance down the alley in only a few seconds. This was her chance.
Just as Danny’s fingers flexed to turn the key, she saw motion on the edge of her vision. She flicked her eyes to the rearview mirror, looking back along the alley. There was a human shape in the doorway opposite, staring at her. Hidden in the shadow, crouching down, still and intent. Its lard-colored eyes were fixed upon Danny. Its shrunken fingers were reaching out.
Hunters
, Danny thought.
Almost got me, you fucker
. She didn’t know it, but she was growling.
Then she heard the 20mm cannon rattle into action.
Too late
, the voice said. In the same instant, Danny fired the ignition, stomped on the gas, and the Impala sprang forward, the engine’s ungoverned two hundred horsepower devouring the length of the alley. Her ears rang with the machinemade thunder of the cannon.
Too late
.
The driver of the Humvee twisted his head around and saw the interceptor roaring toward him. The noise of the big gun had masked the sound of the motor; it was the motion that caught his attention. Danny could see his blue eyes widen, black brows flying up, then his shoulder twisted as he reached for the starter switch.
Too late
.
The gunner up above was already swinging the .50 caliber machine gun around, but he had a full two-hundred-degree turn to make before the muzzle came to bear on her.
Too late
.
The interceptor hit the Humvee with the force of a wrecking ball. Acceleration had raised the nose of the police car up several inches, but it still lacked the height required to clear the heavy chassis of the target. The impact, however, was of such power that the engine block of the interceptor was driven into the Humvee’s front door, buckling the panel into the driver’s position. The entire machine was thrust sideways five feet across Main Street, tires barking.
Danny was wearing her seatbelt when she struck the larger machine. One-twenty-fifth of a second after impact, both front airbags were fully deployed. The interceptor’s nose collapsed according to its design, crumpling like an accordion around the engine. Danny was hurled forward, then backward against her seat. The interceptor filled with cornstarch dust from the airbag. Small objects flew around the cabin. Danny had meticulously cleared whatever she could find from the front of the interceptor that might
turn into a projectile, but there was always something. Loose change and paperclips. Every pane of glass in the interceptor shattered, bursting apart into sparkling crumbs. Danny’s arms flailed helplessly on impact, human muscle incapable of resisting the G forces generated by a sudden stop. Her hook-hand slammed into the dashboard. The steering wheel bent. The interceptor came to a halt, puking gasoline and antifreeze from its guts.
Danny’s advantage was surprise. She knew what was coming. It was going to be another debilitating hammer blow to her abused body, of course. But she had made what preparations she could. Her mind blinked on and off for a few moments after the crash, but then she was present again, looking up past the flaccid caul of the airbag and the empty windshield frame, at the side of the Humvee. There was blood on the remaining glass in that vehicle, and the gunner was slumping down inside the cabin, clutching his broken face. She hadn’t wasted her chance.
Then the pain from her crippled hand came roaring up, and for a few seconds Danny thought she wasn’t going to be able to do anything else. The pain turned her entire side into fire and blue light, screaming. Every severed nerve in her knuckles awoke and cried out. Danny gasped, her eyes rolling, and writhed against the seatbelt. Then the wave of pain became a steady hammering, and she was back in action.
The door was jammed tight. She got the belt off and crawled out of the empty window frame. Danny’s legs wouldn’t hold her, but she was going to have to get around behind the vehicles, because the 20mm cannon up ahead would be coming around at any moment. She used the Impala for support and staggered behind it, reaching her shotgun out of the backseat. It was in working order.
Time to get ill
, as the saying went. Danny could feel the steel sleeve over her amputation filling with hot liquid, certainly blood.