“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Tom held up both hands. “Jarvis, calm down, man. We got to go, the Changed—”
“Who? What?” Jarvis screamed. “What what—”
“What’s wrong with him?” Chris asked.
“Probably the pressure wave. Scrambles some people up. Jarvis,” Tom tried again, “listen to me, man. It’s okay, but we have to go, we have to—” Suddenly, Tom stiffened and turned back toward the plateau and the smoking tower.
“What?” Chris asked. “What do you—” Then, over the crackle of flames, Chris heard it, too: the sharp snap of brush, the stomp of boots on rock.
Deep in the smoke, something moved. Something . . . dark blue. For a disorienting moment, Chris thought the smoke was pulling together, changing color, becoming parkas and then jeans—and then he realized that what he saw were Changed, a lot of them, surging up the rise only a hundred feet away, materializing like invaders teleported from a distant planet.
“Chris.” Tom clamped a hand on his arm and tugged. “Come on. Don’t look, just go.”
Oh my God. Chris was paralyzed, rooted to the spot. Jarvis was screaming again—“What what what”—and Chris was thinking, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t . . .
“Chris!” Tom snapped him around so quickly Chris had to clutch Tom’s arms to keep his feet. “I said, don’t look at them. Get on your horse, Chris! Get on your horse, now!”
“O-okay,” Chris gasped. He took off in a stumbling run, Tom crowding behind, urging him on. Snatching his bay’s reins, Chris tried to boost to his saddle, but his feet wouldn’t work. “Come on,” he heard himself plead, “come on, come on, come—”
He heard them: boots stirring debris, kicking wood, crunching glass. Getting louder. His back prickled. Coming closer, don’t look, don’t look, don’t! But then, he did snatch a glance—stupid—and a nail of terror jabbed his heart. The Changed, so many, too many, were fanning out, spilling over the plateau, charging right for them.
“Chris, no!” Tom was already whipping his horse around. “Don’t look! Come on! You’ve got time, just don’t panic!”
Too late. Socking his boot in a stirrup, he grabbed leather and swam to an awkward half-sit on his saddle. Tried not to look. Couldn’t help it. The Changed, these children of Rule, were less than fifty feet away. In the coming day he could see their mouths open in silent snarls and their eyes, their eyes, so wide, so wild. No weapons, only teeth and clawed fingers and—
Don’t look, Chris. No voice but his own, one that wanted him to live. Move, or you’re dead.
But it was fascinating, appalling, awful: every nightmare come to life and why deer froze in headlights and people died at train crossings and Moses covered his eyes. No one can help but stare at the monster, because horror is a cousin to awe.
“Chris, no, what are you doing? Chris!” Tom shouted as the same moment that Jarvis bellowed, “Whaaaat! Whaaat whaaa—”
Braying, Night finally shied, Chris’s panic communicating itself to a shocked animal that understood death was a hair’s breadth away. The bay reared. Not yet fully seated, Chris let out a strangled cry as the slide started. He felt himself peeling backward; he was falling, he was going to fall into the Changed and their arms, and they would get him, they were there, they were—
“Ho!” Bullying his prancing mare alongside, Tom snatched at Night’s bridle. “Chris, set your damn knees, grab his mane or withers, and get on, get on!”
Sobbing out a breath, Chris scrambled for a handhold. Night’s terrified eyes rolled; his head snapped back and slammed Chris’s face. The blow was terrific, so hard that Chris’s vision blacked. Stunned, he lost his grip, began to slump . . .
And then there were hands, everywhere: skittering over his left leg and thigh, fingers clutching to pull him off—and he thought, I’m done.
An enormous bang came from someplace over his head. The questing hands suddenly fell away. Another bang. To Chris’s left, a Changed boy slapped both hands to the crater where his nose had been, and tumbled back. Still dazed, Chris felt Tom’s fingers claw his shoulder.
“Don’t lose it, man!” Tom shouted, manhandling Chris onto the saddle. “You can’t lose it, Chris, come on!” Despite his injury, keeping to his mare with only his knees, Tom had a big black Glock in one hand and Chris’s shoulder in the other. Another girl with very long, filthy hair made a lunging grab. Cursing, Tom swung down, stuck the pistol in the girl’s face. The Changed was so intent on him she never saw Tom, much less the gun, and—bang! Her head shattered, skull and scalp and brains and blood and wild hair flaring in a wet spray.
“Sit up!” Tom roared. “Get up, Chris, sit—”
The crack of a shot, not from Tom but to their right. The high zing of a bullet ricocheting off a tree. Bellowing, Jarvis fired again. This time, a Changed boy staggered as a red sunburst suddenly flared over his right breast. The line didn’t exactly falter, but some Changed peeled off, heading for Jarvis, and that gave Chris the precious two seconds he needed to slot his foot into his stirrup.
“All right, come on!” Tom shouted. Wheeling, they kicked their horses to a run and bulleted into the trees, heading back for Rule’s center three miles in their future.
It wasn’t a mistake, but Chris snagged one last look. Two Changed had their arms around the still-bellowing Jarvis. The three danced a drunken pirouette. Then another Changed joined in, and then more and more, and then Jarvis wasn’t bellowing but screeching, the Changed boiling over him the way ants devoured prey, and there was blood, so much of it.
And more to come because it’s the end of the world. Chris faced forward. His eyes stung. His cheeks were wet, and he didn’t think that was only blood. It’s the end, it’s the end, it’s the end.
113
“Get away from the edge! Get away from the edge of the wagon!” Ellie shouted, but no one was listening; everyone was shrieking, kids twisting this way and that to see. It was like a disaster movie where the Martians suddenly busted up and everyone turned to scared rabbits, all big eyes and open mouths, right before the Martians blasted them from their clothes.
“Move, get up!” Snatching her Savage by the barrel, she sprang to her feet, cocking the weapon like a T-ball bat just as a hand hooked onto the wagon behind the elfish boy who wanted to fish. “Get out of the way!” she screamed, and brought the stock hammering down.
The people-eater bawled as its knuckles split wide open. As the boy—was that a boy under all that hair?—gawped up in surprise and pain, she punched his face with the butt. Toppling, the people-eater tumbled into two others, the three going down like bowling pins.
Oh boy, we are in so much trouble . Around her legs, the growling dogs were jostling, trying to wedge together in a wall of balled muscles and bared teeth. In front on the driver’s box, Lucian was on his feet. Racking his shotgun’s pump, Lucian boomed out a shot, and suddenly, a girl was missing her head, twin ropes of blood still pulsing because the heart hadn’t yet got the message. Banging out shots with an enormous, bucking black pistol, Sarah was hitting absolutely nothing, only driving the swarm back with the sheer volume of fire. How long could she keep it up, though? Ellie knew they didn’t have a lot of ammo. The way Sarah was running through that clip, unless she had a couple spare magazines . . .
Maybe Lucian figured out the same thing at the exact same instant: that Sarah was only wasting bullets. That if he wanted to hang on to his creepy scalp, he better book. All of a sudden, Lucian bent, scooped up a pack, hitched it over his shoulder, butted away one people-eater, booted another in the face, and leapt from the box.
“Wait! You have my bullets!” Ellie shouted as Lucian hit the ground and sprinted for the far trees. In the thick tangle of brush and low-hanging boughs, she lost sight of him almost immediately. Not one people-eater followed, probably because there were all these tasty kids.
Now what? All around, kids were still screaming and only sitting as the dogs tried surging to her left where the majority of the peopleeaters were. If the kids would just let the dogs through! Grabbing the elfish boy by the shoulder, Ellie tugged. “Get behind me, get behind the dogs!” she shouted.
The kid threw her a wild, open-mouthed stare. For a second, she thought she’d gotten through, but then he scrambled in the exact wrong direction, for the driver’s box. A flat-faced people-eater with only half a nose suddenly reared up. Shrieking, the elfish boy got an arm up. Half-Nose latched a hand and yanked. Jackknifing, the elfish boy managed to butt his free hand against the wagon. For an instant, he swayed, facedown, like a poorly balanced teeter-totter.
“Sarah!” Ellie shouted as Half-Nose drew back for a strike. “Sarah, behind you!” Pivoting, Sarah jabbed that enormous pistol at HalfNose, squeezed the trigger—and nothing, out of ammo, completely dry. The elfish boy bawled a blood-curdling scream as Half-Nose locked his jaws on the back of the boy’s neck, right around his spine. A moment later, the elfish boy, still kicking, flipped out of sight.
“Noooo!” Blinking back tears, Ellie turned, started swinging blindly, cutting an arc, miserably aware that it was only a matter of
mo ns ters time before a people-eater wrested away the Savage or another got in under a swing. Slow down, slow down; pick a target; you’ll get tired and then they’ll get you. She forced herself to wait, let the dogs protect her. Jet and Ghost, the largest, stood hip to hip, snapping whenever a people-eater got close. Crowding to the front, Mina was pressing her rump against Ellie to herd her back, except the little white-haired girl was cowering behind Ellie’s legs. Caught in a sandwich of dog and little girl, Ellie felt her balance start to go. No, no! If she fell, she might not be able to get back up in time.
“Mina, hold!” She could barely hear herself over the din: screaming kids and barking dogs and braying horses. Shots spackled and popped as the very few kids with guns fired. But they had no room to maneuver, and their aim was wild.