Coach broke through Princess and Tanner and dove, hitting me with a football tackle. She knocked me toward the edge. I skidded painfully across the gravel. There was no time to stop—I was going over.
At the last minute, one of my flailing hands caught the handle of a baling hook. As I flew off the building, the hook scrabbled along the rooftop, then caught in the gutter. Hanging on with one hand, I swung way out from the roof, the hook bending the gutter but somehow miraculously holding. Below I caught a whirling view of Don Weiss rising up from the pavement and beelining for Alex and JoJo. His twitching head was angled wrong on his neck.
I lunged for the other hook still up on the roof. It was too far to reach, but my fingers snagged the nylon loop attached to the handle. Spinning wildly, I managed to drag the second hook with me, and it flew by my face, nicking my cheek just as the gutter gave way under my weight. My momentum carried me beneath the overhang, and I fell back, cartwheeling my arms. My heels jarred the sidewalk, and then my shoulder blades and tailbone hammered the ground. I lay there looking up, waiting for the wall of pain to hit.
Before it could, I saw my brother take flight, an apparition streaking overhead, graceful as a big cat. He broke his fall with his feet, tumbled over one shoulder, and came up in a shooting position, blasting a shell through Don Weiss’s face as he closed in on Alex. Patrick’s cowboy hat never even shifted on his head.
Forcing myself up, I gave a whistle through my fingers. A moment later Cassius scrambled around the hillside by the edge of the store, tumbling over himself, skidding out across loose dirt. He took up at my side. I yelled for the other dogs, but they didn’t come. Far up on the hill, I caught streaks of low movement between the tree trunks, the other ridgebacks scattering. They were disoriented and couldn’t find us. Between the severe shadows thrown by the streetlights, I could make out Zeus’s loping run into the forest. I shouted again, but they kept on, the others following him until they vanished. Though I was relieved they were safe, I felt something in my chest give way. I wanted all my dogs with me. Blood dripped from my cheek, hot and sticky.
Beside me I heard Alex clear her throat, a faint noise that sounded a lot like fear. When I turned in line with her and the others, I found myself staring at countless eyeless faces all across the square. The Hosts ramped into motion, heading toward us from every direction.
“Oh, no,” JoJo said, scaling my legs, climbing into my arms. “Oh, no.”
Gene Durant trudged back over to the rattling jackhammer, picked it up, and sank it through the craggy hole in the road that he and his brother had created earlier. A pulse flickered across the streetlights, and then everything went dark.
The power—out.
Now we could discern only shadowy figures with holes for eyes. They were all around us.
Patrick moved first, breaking for the alley behind Bob n’ Bit Hardware, where the Hosts seemed to be sparsest. “Follow me!” he shouted.
We ran.
The hardware shop still blazed with the light of the forge. As we neared it, the Widow Latrell sprang out, but Patrick turned and kicked her, his boot pistoning into her frail chest. She flew back into the forge. Sparks exploded up, clinging to the other Hosts around the fire, their arms loaded with guns from the wheelbarrow. Latrell’s limbs rowed mechanically, trying to pull her free even as the orange flame engulfed her. JoJo buried her face in my shoulder, and we kept running, but not before I saw fire bubble the flesh of Latrell’s neck.
Carrying JoJo slowed me down. I fell farther behind the others. We cut up the alley, and Alex screamed and pointed overhead. I looked up. A woman took flight from the rooftop of the One Cup Cafe, her arms spread like a bat’s wings. I weaved at the last second and heard her hit the ground behind us. Rocky was breathing hard, half wheezes, half sobs. Cassius trotted at my side, but even at his size he was more puppy than dog. He managed a few snarls but couldn’t provide the kind of muscle Zeus or Tanner would have.
Patrick cleared a path for us through the tight alley, smashing Hosts with the butt of the shotgun, preserving ammo. Feet pounded across the rooftops on either side of us, Hosts stalking our movement overhead.
One leapt and struck Alex on the way down. She spilled, losing her grip on her hockey stick. The Host rose, looming over her. Even from behind I could tell that it was Mrs. Wolfgram. She held a length of rope coiled around both clawlike hands. I could see straight through the back of her head.
Mrs. Wolfgram pounced.
Before she could land, she was knocked violently to the side, hammering into a brick wall and crumpling to the ground. Patrick stood over Alex now, gripping the shotgun like a baseball bat.
He held out his hand for her.