“All units, all units,” the radio barked. “Prepare for hostilities.”
Kim started the JLTV, the thrum of the engine coming on just as the birds’ chain guns went quiet. She’d seen the ammo the Apaches took: each bullet was about the size of her hand. Behind her, she could hear Mitts scrambling, and in front of her, she could see more cars breaking out of line. There was a column of smoke coming from where the helicopters had been firing, and then there was a small explosion. The birds split, drifting to either side of the road and spinning toward the center, dropping their chins so the pilots had a clear view of the road. And then, from the Apache on the right, there was the vapor trail of a missile and a much larger explosion.
There was a weird vacuum of silence following the missile, broken, a few seconds later, by Duran. “Okay,” he said. “This does not seem good.” He turned to look at Kim. “Well?”
“Holy shit!” From above them, Kim heard Elroy shouting, but she didn’t need to hear him call out “Fast mover” because she saw the jet spear past them. And then. Holy God. The jet launched a missile.
Chaos.
A fireball fifty feet high.
The slow, orderly movement of cars and trucks onto the side road toward Desperation broke down immediately. In front of them, cars and trucks and SUVs pulled into the desert wherever they could, and Kim could see people getting out of their cars and running. A couple hundred yards in front of her, she saw a man running across the dirt get plowed down by a sedan that had left the highway. The sedan didn’t slow down. The helicopters opened fire with their chain guns again. Kim could see more and more people getting out of their cars. They were running from the fury of the helicopters and the burning ash from where the jet had launched its missile. It was a sight she never thought she’d see: American citizens running from the might of the American military.
No. No. That wasn’t right. They weren’t running away from the gunfire and missiles. She grabbed the binoculars from the console and spun the wheel on the dial until the view came into a tight focus. “No,” she said. She could see moving shadows, see the way dark fingers were reaching up and sucking people down into the maw. Men and women and children were running and screaming. The jet and the birds weren’t firing on civilians.
“They’re here,” she said. She didn’t scream it or yell. It was her normal tone of voice. Almost conversational. She felt . . . calm. She was scared. She was willing to admit that. How could she not be scared? But she also understood that she was where she needed to be. She looked at Duran and then at Mitts. She looked up and then at Elroy, standing with his hands on the butterfly triggers of the .50 cal. She’d never thought about deploying on US soil, but she’d wanted to join the Marines her whole life, and she was ready for this. She needed to be ready. Her men trusted her.
The radio crackled. “All units, you are cleared to fire. Do not, repeat, do not allow the quarantine zone to be breached. Fire at will.”
She wanted to ask what the fuck they were supposed to be firing at, people or spiders, but the Marines had already opened up. She felt the truck shiver from Elroy firing the .50 cal, the dead heavy thump of the gun spitting bullets. A semitruck that had made it off the highway and into the desert exploded and then tipped over. There was a huge mess of cars moving and smashing and trying to get anywhere but where they were. To her right, Kim could see that Sue’s Hummer was firing its .50 cal as well, and one of her crew, maybe Private Goons, was out of the truck and firing his M16. Next to her, she saw Duran reach for the door handle, but she grabbed his arm.
“Stay in the car,” she said. “We can stop cars and we can stop civilians, but what’s the point of shooting at spiders? I want to be ready to roll.”
She picked up the binoculars again. Without the binoculars, the spiders were a black mass, four hundred yards out now, but through the glass, Kim could see a woman flailing her arms, her head shimmering with black beads. The woman dropped suddenly, and Kim wasn’t sure if it was from the spiders or a bullet. At first, it seemed like there was no pattern to it, but Kim realized most of the people were running from right to left. And the firing Marines didn’t seem to matter. The people were more scared of the spiders than of the guns.