What happened to him?
What made him cry like that?
What can make him stop?
Buck shrugged. “We’ll sort it out later.” The big man had sounded so whiny and entitled when the survivors first found him. Now he was assured, calm, and kind. Ken wondered if the big man had changed, or if the world they had plummeted into had simply stripped away the negative camouflage he had been wearing and lain bare the real man, the good man he truly was.
Aaron and Christopher got off the bus. The thing rocked on the bits of spring that remained functional in its shocks.
“Who’s on the horn?” said Aaron. Ken realized that their driver – he was starting to just think of her as The Redhead – had something to her ear. Not a cell, it couldn’t be that. Cell phones had been infected just as surely and horrifically as the population. To get on the phone was to listen to madness given voice, to succumb to anguish and literally die of despair.
No, The Redhead was talking on something else. But it looked like a phone. Sort of. Ken finally realized what it was, and wasn’t too surprised he hadn’t figured it out earlier. He had barely seen it, and it was so surprising that his mind had blanked what few details his eyes had managed to capture.
It was a walkie-talkie. One that looked like it had been picked up from a Radio Shack or some hobby shop. Not military, but just a simple plastic case that probably housed a few transistors and a nine-volt battery.
Cell phones had become so ubiquitous it wasn’t unusual to see preteens that owned them, talking into their Nokias or iPhones while sipping Frappuccinos and feeling oh-so-grown-up before the first zit even marred their faces. Even police and paramedics used cells rather than their CBs half the time, so Ken couldn’t get too upset that he didn’t realize what The Redhead had in her hands the first time he saw it.
She said something. Ken saw Aaron bristle a bit, so he figured it was probably somewhere on the social niceties scale between “None of your business” and “Go suck it.” The Redhead hadn’t shown herself to be particularly cheerful or interested in refinement.
Ken allowed himself to be led off the bus. He saw Sally simply drop through one of the holes in the floor, emerging from under the side of the bus. The snow leopard still looked on guard, every single hair at attention. The cat approached Buck and Maggie as they helped Ken off the bus, licking first Liz’s trailing foot, then Hope’s. Satisfied, it stepped back.
But not far. And its hackles stayed high.
“How far are you?” said The Redhead into the walkie-talkie.
Ken thought he heard a voice, but it was small and faraway. He couldn’t make out what it said.
He looked behind the bus. Couldn’t see the thing that had clung to the undercarriage and nearly taken them out – had taken them out, now that he thought about it – but he suspected it was still coming toward them. Guided by some internal GPS, led by a sense impossible to define or understand.
The girls.
Ken looked at Hope and Liz. Silent. Still.
But were they asleep?
Or could they be busy behind closed eyes?
Calling for help?
Giving out locations?
He shuddered. He didn’t want to think about that, because that would mean his children – all of his children –were truly lost.
“Not good enough!” Ken looked back at The Redhead in time to see her stab at a button on her walkie-talkie and shove the device in a pocket. She looked at Christopher, who was still sobbing. “He gonna be able to move?”
“He’ll do what he needs to,” said Aaron. His voice sounded different than he had a few moments ago. Tighter. Ken wondered what the change was. Then realized this might be what the man sounded like when he was reporting to a superior. That Aaron was some kind of military or paramilitary was not in doubt. The only question was of the details.
Was The Redhead military as well?
Before Ken could ask, the sound came again. Thrumming, pounding.
… up…
… in…
… ive up…
… ive in…
give up
give in
Give up.
Give in.
The sounds grew stronger, both in his ears and in his mind, and with them came the realization that the survivors weren’t done running. Not by a long shot.
Another horde had found them.
24
A moment later Ken realized that his assessment had been wrong. It wasn’t a horde.
It was three hordes. Maybe four.
Not a mega-horde, nothing like the one that had coated every outer inch of the Wells Fargo building and climbed sheer walls to get to the survivors.
No, this was a number of smaller groups. Maybe a hundred each. One came from each end of the street, effectively trapping them. A few hundred feet and counting.
Aaron stepped toward the nearest building, a storefront that proclaimed No Activation Fee and LOW LOW Monthly Rates!
But before he took more than a few steps, the still-weeping Christopher holding tight to him, he looked up.