She had seen Derek change.
And it didn’t matter that it hadn’t been Ken’s fault. That there was nothing he could have done. That Derek had done it himself in a stunning display of selfless courage. She couldn’t blame Derek for what had happened. You didn’t blame the hero for the loss. And the girls… too young to bear responsibility for what happened to Derek.
So that left Ken.
He wondered for a moment if his marriage was over. If the Armageddon that had killed so much of the world had also murdered his marriage. And wondered if that would render his life worthless. So much of who he now was began with the words husband and father.
What if half of that was gone?
Maggie’s face was phasing through a series of emotions, none of them good. Distrust, anger, confusion, fear, sorrow. All of them seeming like sharp knives cast directly at him.
Then Maggie seemed to notice Hope. The little girl was still keening. Almost singing wordlessly from her perch on Ken’s chest. Reaching toward the ceiling, staring up with fever-bright eyes that did not notice or did not care to see her mother only a few short feet away.
“What’s wrong with her?” Maggie said. It was almost a whimper, the venom gone from her voice as fast as it had come. Now there was only fear. Terror that bit as deeply and painfully as had the hate.
“I don’t know.” His words sounded empty. Sounded like the worst kind of lie: the truth of helpless despair.
Give up.
Give in.
Ken stepped toward Maggie. He felt like if he could hold her, could even touch her hand, they could fix this. They could get through this.
He knew they could survive as long as the family remained. Derek was gone, but they could endure. The family could ride out the storm.
Something hit the top of the elevator. Then something else. Then the whole cab shook as what sounded like a hundred feet pounded across the ceiling.
A moment later, the strange sucking noises Ken had heard before oozed their way into the elevator, and thumps and thuds resounded through the walls of the suspended cage that had become their world.
And then noises came through the floor.
The things were crawling on the walls. Everywhere. Above, below, around them.
Something coughed outside the elevator. A gagging, choking noise that made Ken’s hackles rise, because he knew what it meant.
Smoke started seeping in through one of the corners of the elevator where the back wall met the ceiling.
Something else coughed. More smoke, this time coming from the floor.
“They’re gonna burn their way in,” said Dorcas.
“Or just burn us,” said Christopher.
61
Buck was on the door in an instant. “Move!” he yelled. He shoved Maggie out of the way, and Ken saw Liz’s head snap to the side as his wife was pushed with her oh-so-precious cargo.
“Hey!” shouted Ken. He jumped at Buck. Not really knowing what he was going to do, only knowing that the man had lain hands on his wife, had bounced his baby girl around like she was less important than a sack of flour.
He thought he might be able to kill the man. He wondered for an instant if the only monsters were the ones outside the elevator.
The floor lurched. Not just a little, either. Ken’s feet almost went out from under him as the world suddenly tilted to the right, to the left. Then dropped a good six inches.
Screams. Everyone in the elevator seemed to be hollering at once, either in panic or trying to stop others from panicking.
“We’re gonna fall!” Christopher.
“Oh, Jesus, please!” Dorcas.
“Someone help me get this damn door open!” Buck.
“Kenny!” Maggie.
“Everyone shut up!” Aaron.
And his voice did it. He was standing in the back corner of the elevator, the only one who seemed to be unaffected by the sudden jouncing. “The elevator won’t fall.”
“What if the cable breaks?” Buck again. He was scrabbling at the doors with his fingers, and Ken could see dark streaks on the burnished metal. Blood. The man had already broken his skin and nails, clawing at a door that wouldn’t open.
We’re going to die here.
“The cable don’t matter,” said Aaron. “There’s electromagnetic brakes on the rails.”
Buck hesitated for a moment in his panic-scratching. Turned and stared at Aaron in amazement, as though he had just found the blue-ribbon winner in the idiot contest. “Electromagnets don’t work when the power’s out, you dumb shit.”
Aaron’s jaw clenched. In a low voice he said, “The electromagnets keep the brakes open. So when the power goes out, they clamp down. No power, no falling.” He took a step toward Buck. “And you need to calm down or I will calm you down. Forcefully.”
Buck looked like he was going to rise to the threat, but instead he doubled over in a coughing fit. Smoke had saturated the elevator cab. Ken’s eyes were watering, and the light in Christopher’s hand was being dampened by a greasy yellow-gray smog.