“What do you mean?”
Bear shrugged. “No protection from anything. I like walls with doors, and doors that lock.” He paused. “That thing back there. We used to see things like that now and then, roaming the fields. Mutants, changed by the chemicals and radiation from the bombs. Lizards and Croaks and such, but other things, too. Some of them were big and mean. Some of them didn’t even seem to have a reason for being. You had to watch out when you were out in the open. You had to be real careful all the time. We learned that the hard way. My little brother . . .” He trailed off and shook his head. “We lost him because of one of those things. We didn’t go out much at night after that.”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Sparrow said, “In the mountains where I lived with my mother, we never saw anything like you described. Or like that thing back there.” She shivered. “Maybe there were monsters, but they didn’t come around. The only monsters we saw were members of the militias that were hunting us. That was bad enough.”
“Everything’s hunting us,” Bear said quietly.
True enough, Hawk thought. Street kids were at the bottom of the food chain. All kids, for that matter. He tightened his grip on the prod and peered ahead into the darkness where the mist was beginning to thicken again. Bear was right. It was harder to defend yourself out in the open, away from the protection of walls and doors, from the safety of barricades that would keep the bad things out. He remembered how safe it had felt inside their home in Pioneer Square, the rest of the world locked out by Fixit’s inventions and the sense of security that being part of a family created. He wondered if they would find that again where they were going, if the sense of always being hunted would finally end, if the shelter that was promised really would be waiting when they arrived.
He shook his head. He couldn’t imagine it, but he wanted badly to believe that it could happen—an escape from the madness of the world, a retreat from their fear that everything could end at a moment’s notice. It didn’t seem too much to ask, he thought. Not if the vision he had been shown so often was true.
The fog was growing heavier about them, an ebb and flow of shadow movements that could have been anything. Their vision was down to less than a dozen feet and still diminishing. Hawk kept his eyes on Cheney, a few steps ahead of them, watchful for any signs of danger. The big dog kept moving at a steady pace, head swinging, muzzle lowered. Maybe he knew where he was going. At this point, none of the rest of them did. It was impossible even to determine direction.
“Morning can’t be far away,” he said quietly. “It can’t be long now.”
“Hope so,” Bear mumbled.
The ground dropped away into a shallow ravine, and the mist that had collected there stole the last of their vision. They moved through it blindly, fearfully, anxious to get past. “Damn,” Bear muttered.
When they climbed out again on the far bank, they were back on level ground. But the mist was even thicker here.
Bear grunted. “Hope this isn’t going to continue all the way to . . .”
He gasped sharply. The Klee had materialized right in front of him. He had just enough time to bring up the barrel of the Tyson Flechette before a backhand blow sent him tumbling head-over-heels into the ravine and out of sight. Hawk and Sparrow were already falling back, scrambling away like frightened cats, when Cheney burst out of the darkness and flung himself on the Klee. His body weight and the ferocity of his attack staggered the monster but did not knock it over. The Klee straightened as Cheney tore at one arm, and then shook free of the big dog. When Cheney came at it again, it was waiting. Cheney was airborne when the Klee braced itself, stopped the dog’s momentum with one arm, and delivered a devastating blow to the shaggy head with the other. Cheney went down and did not move.
Sparrow screamed in horror and fury, leveled the Parkhan Spray, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The weapon was jammed.
The Klee brushed her aside as if she were not even there and came for Hawk.