“But what about Russell?” Eddie complained. “We gotta keep looking for Russell!”
As far as Harley was concerned, they had looked for Russell long enough. They’d gone all the way back to the graveyard, where they’d hidden behind some trees long enough to see some stocky guy with a little silver beard pushing what looked like a lawn mower around on the snow, then they’d tried to follow their drunken buddy’s trail through the woods. The only clue they picked up was his flashlight, still shining under a bunch of bushes. But it didn’t look good—why would Russell, dumb as he was, have thrown his flashlight away?
“We can’t leave a man behind!” Eddie said, his eyes gleaming in the dusk, and at that Harley had nearly puked. We can’t leave a man behind? What did Eddie think they were—Marines?
“Forget it,” Harley said. “He’s either frozen stiff somewhere, or he’s holed up in the colony right now, warm as toast and telling some bullshit story about how he got lost kayaking.”
And the colony was where Harley was heading. He’d had enough of the graveyard, and more than enough of the fucking woods. If the Coast Guard guys had dug up something special, he’d find it in the colony by now.
It hadn’t been hard to slip through the gap in the stockade wall, and just before the daylight completely vanished, he led Eddie to a secluded spot behind the generator shed. Digging into his backpack, he pulled out a pair of night-vision binoculars and looped the cord around his neck.
“Hey, where’d you get those?” Eddie said enviously as Harley adjusted the scopes.
“Arctic Circle Gun Shoppe.”
“What’d they cost?”
“How the hell should I know?” It wasn’t as if he’d paid for them. He’d swiped them along with the MREs.
The tents were glowing green, but the ground between them was dark, and it was there that the infrared-sensitive lenses came in handy. Harley could sweep the grounds, and if anybody was moving on the pathways, he’d see the blurry outline of their bodies. The only drawback was the slight high-pitched whine that the binoculars gave off, like a mosquito incessantly buzzing around your ears.
Kind of like Eddie.
“I want to see!” Eddie said, groping for the binoculars. “Let me take a look.”
Harley had to swat his hands away, and he could see now that Eddie was flying high. Somewhere along the trail, he must have ingested some uppers. And that was all that Harley needed now—a speed freak as an accomplice.
As he watched, he saw some activity up by the church—that Slater guy was running around in one of those lab suits—and he was bringing up Nika Tincook, the mayor, their arms filled with what looked like sheets and blankets and medical instrument bags. What the fuck was going on? Even over the rising wind, he could hear their voices—they sounded alarmed—but what he didn’t hear, or see, was any activity down in that big old tent by the main gates … where the flaps were waving wildly and the lights were all on inside.
“Come on,” he said to Eddie, “but keep low and keep your mouth shut.”
“What are we doing? Are we rescuing Russell?”
Harley didn’t bother to reply. Crouching low, he set off across the colony grounds, leaping over the PVC pipes and electrical cables that stretched across the snow and under the braided ropes that marked the paths. At the ramp, he slowed down for a second—was that blood on the railing?—but he couldn’t very well stay outside either. He ducked under the flaps and waited for Eddie to follow him in.
“Hey, man, did you see the blood on—”
“Shut up,” Harley said, looking around but seeing no one. There were counters on both sides, covered with beakers and vials and microscopes; it reminded him of the chemistry class he’d failed. On a computer screen, he saw what looked like a molecule—or was it an atom?—turning slowly on its axis.
“Check it out,” Eddie said, gesturing at three tanks of white mice. “Wouldn’t your snake like a taste of these little babies?”
Before Harley could stop him, the idiot had reached inside a container and lifted one out by its tail. Its back was stained with orange ink and it dangled frantically in the air.
“Drop the goddamned mouse,” Harley said.
Grinning, Eddie lifted it over his open mouth like he was about to swallow it, and Harley shoved him, hard enough that the mouse slipped free and ran squeaking for cover.
“I am going to kick your ass if you do one more stupid thing,” Harley said.
“Big man,” Eddie said, but he lowered his eyes and didn’t issue any further challenge.