By the time they made it through the line of carnage that had once been a solid wall of zombies, the survivors were all leaning on one another. All touching, everyone holding hands and arms and slumped into the center, bracing for the strength that they no longer had.
The only ones who walked under their own power were The Redhead, who took point, and Sally, who padded softly just ahead of Buck and Maggie – walking near the children as he always did.
The snow leopard had apparently been closer to the blast radius of the RPG than the rest of them. His right side was stained with blood and his right ear looked decidedly shorter than the left, ending in a ragged black stump that twitched every few seconds as though the cat were batting away a nonexistent fly with the equally nonexistent organ.
Ken was at the center, held up by Buck on one side and Maggie on the other. He had an arm around each, and could reach out and touch his girls’ hair if he wanted to.
He didn’t. He didn’t do it, and he didn’t want to do it. They were still asleep, still comatose through all the running and the violence and the explosions. He didn’t want to think about why. Didn’t want to think about what it would do to him if he felt their hair and they didn’t respond.
Worse, what if they did respond… and the responses were not those of his little girls, but simply two more cells of the zombie organism?
So he kept eyes mostly forward. Concentrated on putting foot after foot, step after step.
He heard sobbing. Christopher. Something had broken in the young man. Ken didn’t understand it, but the bus had destroyed the strong, carefree person they all knew. Aaron was all but carrying him along, and finally said, “Kid, you gotta get it together.”
“Did you see?” said Christopher.
“See what?”
“The baby. The baby,” was all Christopher could manage.
“We all saw it. And it wasn’t a baby.” Aaron sounded tired. Drawn. He had lost as much as any of them, had been hurt as badly. But he kept on going, never complained.
Ken wondered what the man’s secret was. Just training? Or was it more than that?
Who is he?
“She was wearing a red bracelet,” said Christopher.
“What?” Aaron almost stopped walking. Almost, but not quite. Ken was glad. That would have brought the whole group to a shuddering halt, and Ken thought they all might simply collapse in a spent pile if that happened. Worse, he didn’t know if they would have the strength to get up again.
“Her little bracelet,” said Christopher. “But it wasn’t white, it was red.” He said it again, his voice tearing out of him between sobs. “Red.”
Aaron looked at Ken, then at Buck and Maggie. All of them shrugged.
Maggie touched Christopher’s shoulder. Squeezed. She was going to say something, and Ken knew it would be the right thing. The thing that needed to be said, and that would heal. Or if not heal, at least soothe. Maggie had always had that talent.
Before she could, though, before she had the chance to work her magic with Christopher, The Redhead turned around. Tears shone on her cheeks and fury sparkled through glistening eyes.
“Can’t you shut him up?” she demanded.
For a second Ken thought Maggie was going to yell back at The Redhead. That was when he knew his wife had adopted Christopher, fully and completely. Maggie’s first instinct was to defend him like a momma bear with a cub, whether he was in the right or not. That more than anything meant that the young man was as much a part of their family as Liz or Hope.
Maybe more, depending on what’s happening….
Shut up, Ken. Don’t think that.
But Maggie managed to bite back her sharp retort. She shrugged. “We don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
Aaron’s expression shifted. “He knew the baby,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Christopher sobbed again. It was a sound beyond agony. Beyond terror. It brought to mind one thing. One moment that Ken wished he could forget, one moment that he knew would hang before him in every instant of whatever life remained to him.
Falling. Falling and falling forever.
“We all knew people,” spat The Redhead. The tears were large in her eyes, diamonds of exquisite color and clarity that shimmered then shattered and fell down her cheeks along silvered streams.
Ken was lost in their descent. Lost in another fall.
The moment Derek let go of him.
The moment his boy fell to save his mother.
The moment his son was lost.
And he knew who the baby was.
Who it must be.
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