Astrid had nothing to say. She knew all the right answers. But the will was gone. Did she herself even believe in God anymore? Why argue over a phantom? They were two fools arguing over lies.
But Astrid still had her pride. And she could not remain silent and let Brittney have the final word.
“Brittney, do you really want to kill a little boy? No matter what your so-called God tells you, isn’t it wrong? When your beliefs tell you to murder, doesn’t a voice inside you tell you it is wrong?”
Brittney frowned. “God’s will . . .”
“Even if it is, Brittney, even if that mutant monster in a cave really is God, and even if you’ve understood Him perfectly, and you’re doing His will, and He wants you to kill, to deliver a little boy to Him so that He can kill, isn’t it wrong? Isn’t it just plain wrong?”
“God decides right and wrong.”
“No,” Astrid said. And now, despite everything, despite her own exhaustion, despite her fear, despite her self-loathing and contempt, she realized she was going to say something she had never accepted before. “Brittney, it was wrong to murder even before Moses brought down the commandments. Right and wrong doesn’t come from God. It’s inside us. And we know it. And even if God appears right in front of us, and tells us to our faces to murder, it’s still wrong.”
It was that simple in the end, Astrid realized. That simple. She didn’t need the voice of God to tell her not to kill Little Pete. Just her own voice.
“Anyway, Brittney,” Astrid said. “If you want to get to Petey, you have to go through me.”
She smiled then for what felt like the first time in a long time.
Brittney, too, smiled, but sadly. “I won’t, Astrid. But Drake will. You know he will. The bugs are all around this building, waiting. And when Drake comes, he will take Little Pete and kill you.”
The two girls had almost forgotten the swaying, bleary-eyed Orc.
He moved now with surprising speed. He grabbed Brittney by the neck and waist and threw her from the window.
“I don’t like her,” he said.
Astrid ran to the window and saw Brittney lying flat on the ground.
The bugs turned their blue eyes upward.
Indifferent to Brittney—who was already picking herself up, unharmed—they surged toward the ruined front door of Coates Academy.
“About time.” Orc laughed. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Orc, don’t let them kill you,” Astrid said, putting her hand on his arm.
“You was always nice to me, Astrid. Sorry I . . .” Then he shrugged. “Don’t matter now. Better get out if you can. Most likely this won’t take long.”
He ran into the hallway. Astrid last saw him as he laughed at the bugs below him, vaulted the landing rail, and dropped down into the swarm.
“You want Orc?” he bellowed. “Come and get me!”
The boy, whose name was Buster, tried to get away, tried to stand up and run, but he was far too slow, far too sick. He coughed and stumbled and fell on his knees.
The bug’s tongue attached to his neck and yanked him headfirst into flashing mouthparts.
A girl named Zoey coughed, doubled over with the pain of it, and a second later was caught and eaten.
It was a massacre.
Brianna flew like a madwoman, her knife flashed, her sawed-off shotgun barked, but the bugs were up the stairs and pushing inside, smelling the fresh meat in the hospital.
One of the bugs had grown so big it became jammed and blocked the doorway, but at least one of the creatures had made it inside already, and Brianna could hear muffled screams of terror from down below.
She darted, bypassed a flashing tongue, leaped over scythe mandibles, and stabbed a bug in both red eyes. Then she stuck her shotgun into the gnashing mouth and pulled the trigger.
The massive creature shuddered, but did not die.
Brianna barely leaped aside in time to avoid being caught. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the massive creatures rise, turn in midair, and land hard on its back.
“Caine!” she yelled.
She threaded her way through the swarm, leaped easily through the wildly waving legs of the overturned bug, and stabbed her knife into its guts.
Then, into the largest of the gashes she thrust the shotgun and pulled the trigger.
BLAM!
Bug guts and bits of shell blew back and covered her. But the legs were jerking wildly now, slower, slower . . .
Caine had overturned another bug and this one he hammered with a car, lifting and slamming, lifting and slamming, until the creature was a giant mess of stick-legs and goo.
The creatures turned away from feasting on the sick. There were only seven of the bugs left now, not counting the one that was down in the so-called hospital or the one stuck in the doorway.
Seven.
“I’ll flip them!” Caine yelled.
Brianna picked a piece of bug guts off her cheek and nodded. She quickly reloaded her shotgun and zoomed to mount the latest overturned creature. She was learning as she went along. The creatures had weak spots, one of them was the underside of what would be their chin. She stabbed with her knife, twisted to make an opening, pushed the shotgun into the gaping wound, and pulled the trigger.
The bug’s head blew apart.
“Oh, yeah! Oh, definitely!” Brianna cried.
But Caine had been a bit too slow and now three of the creatures were pursuing him. All three had latched on to him with their tongues and he was yelling his head off for help.