“With good reason,” Chelsea said. “Those zombies you see there, that's just a satellite of the Great Texas Herd. My father used to say that was the biggest herd in the world. He said they were more than a hundred million strong.”
“But I don't understand,” Jacob said. “When we were being held by Mother Jane and her family, we saw one of those aerofluyts steer a giant herd away from the camp. Can't they do that here?”
“They tried that already.” Chelsea pointed at a pretty young Asian woman in a red suit, her image superimposed over an aerial image of a slowly advancing zombie horde. “That's what this newswoman is saying. The
Newton
has already made multiple sweeps overhead. Ordinarily, an aerofluyt's morphic field generator can be used to shepherd herds wherever you want them to go, but it's not working.”
Chelsea turned back to the monitor and listened for a moment.
“Now she's saying that El Paso has been attacked before, but always by satellite herds, never like this. Their automated defenses have held in the past, but they don't think they can handle a herd this size. They're directing all personnel into the tunnels beneath the city.”
“They've got aircraft,” Jacob said. “Why don't they just fire-bomb them from the air? With the technology you people have, you could wipe them out in minutes.”
“Be quiet,” Chelsea said in a stage whisper. “People will hear you.”
“So?”
“So, we don't have a military here in Temple. We don't believe in guns.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jacob said.
“Keep your voice down,” Chelsea said.
Kelly put a hand on his shoulder. “Jacob,” she said. “We need to work this out.”
“No shit,” he said. He turned to Chelsea and shook his head. “Look, I'm sorry. But what the hell are we doing here? No guns. Really? Chelsea, we were chased by the same guys, right?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don't know who those men were. I don't. I think they work for Lester Brooks, but I don't know that for sure. Those weapons are only supposed to be available to exploration parties on the aerofluyts. They shouldn't be here in Temple.”
“Yeah, well, guess what. I don't think they care about your fucking rules.”
“But they shouldn't be here.”
“Okay, but they are here. Why are we arguing about this?”
Chelsea looked away. “This shouldn't be happening,” she said.
Jacob was beyond frustration. “Okay, well, one thing is clear. We're not going to El Paso. We need to figure something else out.”
Chelsea spun around, suddenly full of fury. “But we have to go there. Don't you see?”
“No, I don't,” Jacob said.
“My family is there.”
He pointed at the monitors. “Am I talking to a wall here? Chelsea, look at that. I see rivers of dead people. You tell me there could be a hundred million more on the way. I can't even imagine what that looks like, and you expect me to just dive on in because your family is there? No thanks. I've done my share of stupid things, but that is not going to be one of them.”
Chelsea looked at Kelly, hoping for some kind of support.
“Chelsea,” Kelly said, shrugging her shoulders helplessly, “I really don'tâ”
“But we have to get there. My aunt Miriam, she's the only one who can help us.”
“She can't be the only one,” Jacob said. “I mean, look at all these news feeds. Can't we just send a bunch of copies of your father's notes to these people and let them spread the word?”
“That wouldn't work.”
“How do you know that? These people could clear your father's name with a single broadcast.”
“Yeah, maybe, if it ever got to them. But it wouldn't.”
“Why not?”
“You really don't understand how this works, do you?”
“How what works?”
Chelsea pointed at the screens. “This. The political part of this. Every station you see here, every broadcast, Lester Brooks controls them all. He sets the tone. He's the one who decides what the public hears.”
“One man?” Jacob said. “Chelsea, I'm sorry, but that's kind of paranoid.”
“But he does,” Chelsea said. She was yelling loud enough to attract the attention of some of the others standing around them, and seeing that quieted her down. She waited until the people in the crowd went back to their own business before speaking again. “You have to understand,” she said, “in the span of a few months, he managed to turn my father into the biggest villain Temple has known since the initial outbreak. My father used to be a great man, but Lester Brooks has turned him into a monster. Ask anyone in this place, they'll tell you exactly what Lester Brooks has guided them to say.”
Jacob could only shake his head. But he couldn't drop the point, either. “I think that's ridiculous, Chelsea. One man can control an entire world's worth of information. Do you really believe that?”
She smiled, like he'd fallen into some kind of trap. “What I think is that it's proof my father was right about the morphic field generators. They really are turning us into sheep. Don't you see? He was right.”
“Chelsea, are you listening to yourself? Do you realize how paraâ”
She cut him off with a wave of her hand, then nodded at something over Jacob's shoulder. “We're out of time,” she said. “Look.”
Jacob turned. He scanned the crowd, and saw two men standing on the edge of the crowd, slowly and deliberately looking at everyone there. He saw two more pairs waiting at the side doors, and another standing near the bottom of the escalators that led up to the monorail trains.
“I have to get my father's notebooks,” Chelsea said.
“And then what?” Jacob asked.
She pointed down a hallway behind the escalators. “Down there,” she said. “We can find transport down there.”
“But you just said all flights were cancelled.”
“All manned flights, yeah, but not routine cargo deliveries. Those are unmanned freighters.”
“I still don't think this isâ”
“Would you just go, please? They're coming this way.”
She was right. One of the men over by the main entrance was looking right at them. He touched his neck and started to talk, but Jacob couldn't read his lips.
He didn't have to, though.
It was obvious enough the man was calling them in. They had to move.
“How will we know what we're looking for?” Jacob asked.
“You'll know.”
“And you? How will we find you?”
“I'll find you,” she said.
With that she ducked into the crowd and silently slipped away. She was a small girl, just barely over five feet tall and hardly ninety pounds. She was gone in the blink of an eye.
“Jacob, what do we do?”
“We can't stay here. Those guys want her for the notebooks, but we're not worth anything to them. They'll kill us.”
“Oh God,” she said. “I don't want to be here.”
“Me, either.” He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away from there. He glanced back and saw the men moving toward them at a trot, pushing people out of the way as they forced their way through the crowd.
They slipped around the escalators and fell in with the crowd moving toward the main passenger terminals.
He pulled her close and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Duck out here.”
They turned into the empty hallway Chelsea had pointed out to them, but a fat man in blue robes was trying to get around them, and they nearly knocked him over.
“Hey,” he said.
Jacob tried to guide Kelly farther down the hall, but the man was angry. He raised his voice. “Hey, you there.”
Jacob looked back at the man. He was short and round, his skin a deep coffee color. His robes sparkled in the daylight. He wasn't going to move on, and meanwhile the men hunting them were getting closer.
He grabbed Kelly, spun her around, and pushed her up against the wall. Before she could say a word in protest, he pressed his lips to hers in a rough, clumsy kiss he tried to make look real.
She pushed against him, not returning the kiss at all, but it must have looked real enough, for the fat man stuck two fingers in the air at them and walked off.
Jacob released Kelly from the kiss.
He watched the man in the blue robes walk away, and then turned back to Kelly. He was about to tell her they had to start searching the corridor when she kicked his shin.
“Hey,” he said.
“Don't you ever do that again.”
“I was . . . I was just trying . . .”
“I don't care,” she said, anger flashing in her eyes. “Don't you ever . . . Don't ever touch me like that again.”
“Alright,” he said. “Yeah, okay.”
She pushed him away and smoothed out her blouse. She pushed the hair back from her forehead and gathered herself together. “Fine,” she said.
He took a step back, and in that moment he realized that she hadn't had the luxury of a disconnect the way he had. He'd had two long stretches of unconsciousness. But Kelly, she'd been awake the whole time. She'd lived first with Barry's death, and then with Nick's. She'd had lots of time to sit and stew in the misery and heartache of losing loved ones. His pain was still to come. But hers was an open wound, inflamed and burning, and raw.
“I'm sorry,” he said again.
“Just shut up,” she said. She grunted. “Oh shit.”
Jacob looked up. Two of the men he'd seen following them were coming down the hallway. Both had weapons drawn.
One of the men, dressed in a white tunic and brown pants, raised a pistol at Jacob's face and gave it a flick, motioning Jacob down a side passageway. “Down there,” he said.
“Yeah, right,” Jacob said.
“Move,” the man said.
“Kiss my ass,” Jacob said.
The man rushed forward, his partner coming around him with his pistol raised. The first man shoved Jacob in the chest hard enough to send him crashing into the wall. Before Jacob could recover, the man got in close, dug his fingers into Jacob's underarm, and pushed him deeper into the corridor. He was trying to push Jacob around the corner, out of sight of the crowd. As soon as Jacob realized what the man was doing, he fell backward, sending his attacker off balance.
The man stumbled forward, and when his pistol dipped, Jacob chopped down on the man's wrist.
The pistol clattered to the metal floor.
The man tried to reach for it, but got Jacob's knee to his nose instead. The blow landed perfectly. The man stumbled backward on uncertain feet, his eyes staring at nothing as he fell over. He lay there, unable to stand, twisting from side to side like a man too fat to pull himself to his feet.
Jacob rushed forward, grabbed the fallen man's pistol, and fired it at the man's chest.
Again, there was no sound. The weapon kicked in his hand, but it didn't let loose the familiar bark of a pistol. He did see the round leave the barrel, though. It was just a flash, but Jacob saw it smack into the man's chest and explode.
The man was dead the next instant, his chest suddenly nothing but an empty hole, like the belly of a canoe. Bits of blood and bone went everywhere. It splashed onto Jacob's face and clothes, spattering him in gore.
Jacob turned toward the main hallway, but he was too late. The second man was already there, his pistol raised at Jacob's forehead. “Stop right there,” the man said. “Drop the pistol.”
Jacob hesitated. With one flick of the wrist he could bring his weapon to bear on the man. If he combined that with a jump to the left, he stood a chance of getting off a shot first.
“Don't do it,” the man said, as though reading Jacob's mind. “These things don't cauterize. Even a glancing blow would cause you to bleed out. Get down on the ground. Let's go, facedown.”
Jacob tossed his weapon to the floor. “Yeah, okay,” he said.
He went to one knee. The man held the pistol in his right hand. With his left he reached into a back pocket and produced a pair of handcuffs.
“Hands behind your back,” he said.
“Okay,” Jacob said. “Okay, just don't shoot.”
Jacob bent his other leg as though to go to the ground, but instead planted it in a sprinter's ready position and then bum-rushed the man. He managed to get under the man's gun hand just as he discharged the weapon. Distantly, Jacob heard it smack against the wall and explode harmlessly with a muffled
pop
.
He tried to lift the man off the ground and throw him onto his back, but the man recovered in time and threw his weight backward, landing with his feet spread wide apart. He raised the weapon toward Jacob, but he wasn't fast enough. Jacob was already throwing a chop down on the man's wrist, a blow that knocked the weapon to the ground at Kelly's feet.
Jacob rushed forward again, trying the same flying tackle, but the other man was ready for it. He elbowed Jacob in the back and caused him to collapse.
Jacob fell to his knees, the wind knocked out of him.
The other man lost no time at all. He grabbed Jacob by the shoulders and threw him onto his back. Then he climbed on top of Jacob, his knees holding Jacob's arms down as he began to throw punches at Jacob's face.
The man clearly knew how to work a speed bag. The punches came that fast, and every single blow felt like a cinder block crashing into Jacob's face. He raised a hand to block the punches, but the other man knocked it away and kept on pounding on his face. And somewhere during the pounding Jacob stopped feeling the blows. His mind went off its rails and he started to sink into unconsciousness.