The crowd in question was 103 kids, ranging from one year old to fifteen. But, he thought ruefully, no audience of kids had ever looked quite like this.
No one over the age of five went unarmed. There were knives, machetes, baseball bats, sticks with big spikes driven through them, chains, and guns.
No one was fashionably dressed. At least, not by any of the normal standards. Kids wore disintegrating shirts and jeans in sizes way too large. Some wore ponchos made of blankets. Many went barefoot. Some had decorated themselves with feathers stuck in their hair, big diamond rings made to fit with tape, painted faces, plastic flowers, all manner of bandannas, ties, and crisscross belts.
But they were clean, at least. Much cleaner than they’d been back in Perdido Beach almost a year ago. The move to Lake Tramonto had given them a seemingly endless supply of freshwater. Soap was long gone, as was detergent, but freshwater did wonders all by itself. It was possible to be in a group of kids now without gagging on the stink.
Here and there as the sun sank and the shadows grew Sam could make out the flare of cigarette butts. And despite all they’d tried to do there were still bottles of booze—either original or moonshine—being passed around the small gaggles of kids. And probably, if he’d bothered, he could have caught a whiff of marijuana.
But mostly things were better. Between the food they raised and the fish they caught in the lake and the food they traded for from Perdido Beach, no one was starving. This was an accomplishment of epic proportion.
And then there was the Sinder project, which had amazing potential.
So why did he have this itchy feeling that something was wrong? And more than just a feeling. It was like something half-seen. Less than that. Like a feeling that there was something he should have seen, would have seen if he just turned around quickly enough.
It was like that. Like something that stood just outside the range of his peripheral vision. When he turned to look it was still in his peripheral vision.
It was looking at him.
It was doing it right now.
“Paranoia,” Sam muttered. “You’re going slowly nuts, dude. Or maybe not so slowly, since you’re talking to yourself.”
He sighed and shook his head and formed a grin he hoped would spread from without to within. He just wasn’t used to so much … peace. Four months of it. Good grief.
Sam heard footsteps on the rickety stairs. The door opened. He glanced back.
“Diana,” he said. He stood up and offered her his chair.
“Really not necessary,” Diana said. “I’m pregnant, not crippled.” But she took the chair anyway.
“How are you doing?”
“My boobs are swollen and they hurt,” she said. She cocked her head sideways and looked at him with a degree of affection. “Really? That makes you blush?”
“I’m not blushing. It’s…” He couldn’t really think of what else it might be.
“Well, then, I’ll spare you some of the more disturbing things going on with my body right now. On the good side I no longer throw up every morning.”
“Yes. That is good,” Sam said.
“On the downside, I have to pee more or less all the time.”
“Ah.” This conversation was definitely making him uncomfortable. In fact, even looking at Diana made him uncomfortable. She had a definite, noticeable bulge beneath her T-shirt. And yet she was no less beautiful than she’d ever been and still had the same knowing, challenging smirk.
“Shall we discuss the darkening of areolae?” she teased.
“Please, I’m begging you: no.”
“The thing is, it’s early for some of this,” Diana said. She tried to make it sound casual. But she failed.
“Uh-huh.”
“I shouldn’t be this big. I have all the books on pregnancy, and they all say I shouldn’t be this big. Not at four months.”
“You look okay,” Sam said with a certain desperate edge in his voice. “I mean good. You look good. Better than good. I mean, you know, beautiful.”
“Seriously? You’re hitting on me?”
“No!” Sam cried. “No. No, no, no. No. Not that…” He let that trail off and bit his lip.
Diana laughed delightedly. “You are so easy to mess with.” Then she grew serious. “Have you ever heard of the quickening?”
“Like for taxes?”
“No. No, Sam, that would be Quicken. The quickening is when the fetus starts to move.”
“Oh. Yeah. That.”
“Give me your hand,” Diana said.
He was absolutely sure he did not want to give her his hand. He had a terrible premonition what she would do with his hand. But he could not think of a way to refuse.
Diana looked at him with an innocent expression. “Come on, Sam, you’re the one who can always find a way out of a life-or-death crisis. Can’t you think of a way to refuse?”
That forced a smile from him. “I was trying. Brain freeze.”
“Okay, then, give me your hand.”
He did and she placed his palm against her belly.
“Yep, that’s a, um, a definite belly,” he said.
“Yeah, I was hoping you’d agree that that is a belly. I needed a second opinion. Just wait… There!”
He had felt it. A small movement in her tight-stretched bulge.
He made a sickly smile and withdrew his hand. “So, quickening, huh?”
“Yes,” Diana said, no longer kidding. “More than that, really. I would call it a kick. And guess what? It started about three weeks ago, which would be my thirteenth week. Now, you might think, pfff, no big deal. But here’s the thing, Sam: human babies all grow at basically the same rate. It’s clockwork. And human babies do not start kicking at thirteen weeks.”