“And this boat of yours can actually get them there? This derelict?”
“I hope she can. I
believe
she can.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“We’ve done our best. But there aren’t any guarantees.”
“So those seven hundred lucky people might be going straight to the bottom of the ocean.”
Michael nodded. “That might be exactly what happens. I’ve never lied to you, and I’m not going to start now. But she managed to cross the world once. She’ll do it again.”
The conversation was broken by a burst of voices outside and three hard bangs on the door.
“Well,” Michael said, and clapped his knees. “It looks like our time is over. Think about what I’ve told you. In the meanwhile, we need to make this look right.” He reached into his pack and withdrew the Beretta.
“Michael, what are you doing?”
He pointed the gun halfheartedly at Peter. “Do your best to act like a hostage.”
Two soldiers burst into the room; Michael rose to his feet, raising his hands. “I surrender,” he said, just in time for the closest one to take two long strides toward him, raise the butt of his rifle, and send it crashing into Michael’s skull.
48
Rudy was hungry.
Really
fucking hungry.
“Hello!” he called, pressing his face to the bars to aim his voice down the lightless corridor. “Did you forget about me? Hey, assholes, I’m starving in here!”
Yelling was pointless; nobody had been in the office since early afternoon—not Fry and not Eustace, either. Rudy plopped down on his bunk, trying not to think about his empty stomach. What he would have given for one of those stupid potatoes now.
He rocked back on the cot and tried to get comfortable. There were lots of spots that still hurt; every position Rudy tried made him ache in a different way. Okay, he’d pretty much asked for a beating. He wouldn’t say he hadn’t. But what would have happened if Fry hadn’t gotten the door open? Dead Rudy, that’s what.
For a while he drifted. Little squirts of liquid burbled in his gut. He wasn’t sure what time it was; late, probably, though without Fry coming back to bring him his meals, the day had lost its rhythm. He wouldn’t have minded a book to occupy himself, if there were any light to see by or if he could actually read, which he couldn’t, having never understood the point of it.
Fucking Gordon Eustace.
More time slipped by. His mind was floating on the crest of sleep when a jolt of dread aroused him.
Somewhere outside, a woman was screaming.
The window was positioned high on the wall; Rudy had to stand on his tiptoes and grip the bars to keep his nose above the sill. There were lots of sounds now—shots, shouts, screams. A darkened figure tore past the window, then two more.
“Hey!” Rudy yelled after them. “Hey, I’m in here!”
Something was happening, and it was nothing good. He yelled some more, but nobody stopped or even answered. The screaming died down and then picked up again, louder than before, a lot of people at once. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be telling everybody where he was, Rudy thought. He released his grip and backed away from the window. Whatever was going on out there, he was trapped like a rat in a can. Better to just shut up.
The world went quiet again. Maybe a minute passed before Rudy heard the front door of the building open. He dropped to the floor and scrambled beneath the cot. The squeak of a chair, a shuffling sound, a drawer being opened: somebody was searching for something. Then Rudy heard it: the jingling of keys.
“Sheriff?”
No answer.
“Deputy Fry? That you?”
A soft green light filled the corridor.
Simultaneously, at the farthest outskirts of Mystic Township, Texas, three virals were emerging from the earth.
Like pupae struggling free of their protective coverings, the members of the pod appeared in stages: first the pearlescent tips of their claws, then the long bony fingers, followed by a busting of soil that laid bare their sleek, inhuman faces to the stars. They rose, shaking off the dirt with a doglike motion, and stretched their slumberous limbs. A moment was required to ascertain their situation. It was night. They were in a field. The field was freshly turned. The first to emerge, the dominant member of the pod, was the widowed shopkeeper, George Pettibrew; the second was the town farrier, Juno Brand; the third was a fourteen-year old girl from Hunt Township who had been taken up four nights ago when she’d made a midnight run to the outhouse of her family’s farm. These identities lay beyond their powers of recollection, for they had none; all they had was a mission.
They saw the farmhouse.
A lazy curlicue of smoke chuffed from its chimney pipe. They circled the structure, taking stock. It possessed two doors, front and rear. Though it was not in their natures to bother with a door, nor with the dainty human custom of turning a handle, such was their task that this was what they did.
They entered. Their senses roamed the space. A sound from above.
Somebody was snoring.
The first viral, the alpha, crept up the stairs. So fine were his movements that not even a floorboard creaked; he barely parted air. The faint glow of a lantern issued from the room at the top, carelessly left burning after the house’s inhabitants had retired for the night. In the big bed, two were sleeping, a man and a woman.
The viral bent to the woman. She was on her left side, one arm crooked beneath the pillows, the second exposed upon the blankets. Under the subdued light of the lantern, her skin shimmered deliciously. The viral unlocked his jaws and lowered his face toward her. The barest prick, his teeth delicately sliding into the microscopic spaces of her flesh, and it was done.
She stirred, moaned, rolled over. Perhaps she dreamed that she was pruning roses and got punctured by a thorn.
The viral moved to the other side of the bed. Only the man’s head and neck were exposed. The viral sensed as well that the man, whose snores rattled with a phlegmy texture, was not as deeply asleep as the woman. Leaning forward, the viral tilted his head to one side, as if to aim a kiss.
The man’s eyes flew open. “Holy fucking shit!”
He shoved the palm of one hand against the viral’s forehead to hold him at bay while reaching the other hand beneath the pillow. “Dory!” he bellowed, “Dory, wake up!” The viral was stunned into inaction: this was not how things were supposed to be. And that name, Dory. It jostled his mind. Did he know a Dory? Did he know the man as well? Had the two of them, at one time, been people in his life? And what was the man reaching for beneath his pillow?
It was a gun. With a howl, the man shoved the barrel into the viral’s mouth, pressing the muzzle up against his palate, and fired.
A thunder clap, a parabola of blood, the viral’s brain matter caroming through the crown of his skull to splatter on the ceiling. The body rocked forward, dead weight. The woman was awake now, immobilized with terror and screaming to beat the band. The other virals vaulted up the stairs. Shoving the corpse aside, the man fired at the first one as it burst through the door. He wasn’t really aiming anymore. He was simply squeezing the trigger. The third shot connected in a general way, but that was the extent of it. Two more shots and the hammer fell on an empty chamber. As one of the virals leapt toward him, the man grabbed the only thing he could think of—the kerosene lantern—and hurled it at his attackers.
His aim was true. The viral exploded in flames.
And then everything was on fire.
The feeling hit Amy like a punch to the gut. She doubled over, the trowel falling from her hand, and dropped to her hands and knees in the dirt.
“Amy, are you all right?”
Carter was kneeling beside her. She tried to answer but couldn’t; her breath stopped in her chest.
“You hurting somewhere? Tell me what’s wrong.”
At the same moment, Caleb Jaxon awoke to the disconcerting smell of smoke. He had spent the night in a chair by the door, George’s pistol on the table, his rifle cradled in his lap. His first thought was that his own house was burning; he jerked upright, panic pounding through him. But, no, the room was all in order; the smell came from someplace else. He grabbed the pistol and stepped outside. To the west, beyond the ridgeline, the sky was lit with fire.
“Please, Miss Amy,” Carter said. “You scaring me.”
She was shaking; she could not speak. Such pain they felt, such terror. So many, all at once. Her breath unlocked; air flowed back into her lungs.
“It’s started.”
VI
Zero Hour
The fire which seems extinguished often slumbers beneath the ashes.
—PIERRE CORNEILLE,
RODOGUNE
49
Just after daybreak, Caleb shook Pim by the shoulder.
Something’s happened at the Tatums’.
She sat upright, instantly awake.
What?
Caleb opened the fingers of both hands and moved them in a rotating motion in front of his chest:
Fire.
Pim shoved the blankets aside.
I’m coming with you.
Stay here. I’ll look.
She’s my friend.
Pim was referring to Dory, of course.
Okay,
he signed.
The children were still out cold. While Pim dressed, Caleb awakened Kate to tell her what was happening.
“What do you think it means?” Her voice was groggy, but her eyes were clear.
“I don’t know.” He pulled the revolver from his waistband and held it out. “Keep this handy.”
“Any idea what I’m supposed to be shooting at?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you. Stay inside—we won’t be long.”
Caleb met Pim in the yard. She was gazing toward the ridgeline, hands on her hips. A thick column of white smoke, the color of a summer cloud, billowed at a distance. The color meant the fire was out.
Jeb?
she signed.
The horse was lying where he had fallen. Handsome had wandered to the far end of the paddock, keeping his distance.
He died last night.
Pim’s face was all business.
How?
Maybe collic. I didn’t want to upset you.
I’m your wife.
She signed these words with brisk anger.
I saw you give Kate a gun. Tell me what’s happening,
Caleb had no answer
.
All that remained of the farmhouse was a pile of charred timbers and glowing ash. The heat had been so intense that the glass in the windows had melted. It would be several hours, perhaps a day, before Caleb could look for bodies, though he doubted there’d be anything left but bones and teeth.
Do you think they got out?
Pim asked.
Caleb could only shake his head. How had it happened? A loose ember from the stove? A lantern knocked aside? Something small, and now they were gone.
He noticed something else. The paddock was empty. The gate stood open; the ground around it looked scraped, as if someone had killed the horses and dragged the carcasses away. What did it mean?
Let’s check the barn,
he signed.
Caleb entered first. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. At the rear, in deep shadow, was a hump on the floor.
It was Dory. She was lying in a fetal position. Her hair was burned away, brows and lashes gone, her face swollen and scorched. Her nightdress was charred in places, in others fused to her flesh. Her right arm and both legs were blackened to a crisp; elsewhere the skin had bubbled, as if boiled from within.
He knelt beside her. “Dory, it’s Caleb and Pim.”
Her right eye opened the thinnest crack; the other seemed welded shut. She flicked her gaze toward him. From her throat came a sound, half moan, half gurgle. Caleb couldn’t imagine such agony. He wanted to be ill.
Pim brought a bucket and ladle. She knelt beside Dory, cupped the woman’s head to lift it slightly, and held the ladle to her lips. Dory managed a small sip, then sputtered the rest from her mouth.
We have to get her back,
Pim signed.
Kate will know what to do.
That the woman was still alive was a miracle; surely she would not survive long. Still, they had to try. A wheelbarrow stood propped against the wall. Caleb rolled it over it and fetched a pair of saddle pads from the tack bin and laid them in the bottom.
Take her legs.
Caleb positioned himself behind the woman and hooked his elbows under her shoulders. The woman began to shriek and buck at the waist. After the longest five seconds of his life, they managed to get her into the wheelbarrow. A tacky substance came away on Caleb’s bare forearms: pieces of the woman’s skin.
Her cries subsided. She was breathing in shallow, rapid jerks. The trip would be unbearable for her; each jostle would bring fresh waves of torture. As Caleb hoisted the bars of the wheelbarrow, he saw another problem. Dory was not a small woman. Keeping the whole thing balanced would take every ounce of his strength.
Give me a side,
Pim signed.
Caleb shook his head firmly.
The baby.
I’ll stop if I’m tired.
Caleb didn’t want to, but Pim wouldn’t be deterred. They rolled Dory to the door. As sunlight fell across her, her whole body recoiled, sending the wheelbarrow tipping dangerously to the side.
It’s her eyes,
Pim signed.
They must be burned.
She returned to the barn and came back with a cloth, which she moistened in the bucket and then draped over the upper half of the woman’s face. Her body began to relax.
Let’s go,
Pim signed
.
It took almost an hour to get Dory back to the house, by which time the woman had lapsed into a merciful unconsciousness. Kate rushed out to meet them. When she saw Dory, she turned back toward the door, where Elle and Bug were standing watchfully, curious about all the excitement. Theo was nosing through Bug’s legs like a puppy.