In Jayden’s wagon, a people-eater, bat in hand, vaulted onto the driver’s box. Jayden ducked as the bat whizzed. Long gun socked to his shoulder, the doctor with the eye patch bellowed something—maybe stay down or don’t move—and then a spume of bright yellow muzzle flash leapt. The people-eater’s arms shot out in a surprised way, like Wile E. Coyote, and tumbled off. At the rear, two more people-eaters, all arms and legs and clubs, scrambled onto the flatbed. One launched itself into shrieking children like a diver from a high platform. As the golden retriever, Daisy, and three other dogs converged, kids spilled over the sides of the wagon: their only move, and a terrible one, like buffalo being driven from a cliff.
Where are the guys on the horses, Aidan and Sam, where are they? A scream, far back. Ellie whipped around. Greg’s horse was trying to spin free from the four people-eaters grabbing at Greg’s legs and the reins. Three more swarmed onto the driver’s box of the third wagon. The driver, a girl with a long brown braid down to her waist, shrieked again as a lanky boy, with a duster like Neo’s in The Matrix, whipped the braid around the girl’s neck. Bucking, eyes buggy, the girl heaved and flopped like a fish slowly suffocating in the bottom of a boat. Balling a fist, the Neo Kid smashed the girl’s face as a second people-eater, a ratty boy in fire-engine-red snow pants, leapt onto the thrashing girl. His head darted for her neck like a scorpion stabbing its stinger. Blood spewed; Rat Boy came up with a chunk of meat in his mouth. Bawling, the wagon’s horse reared in a clash of hooves and spurted forward.
The wagon did Greg a favor, and them none. As the wagon hurtled on, the people-eaters clinging to Greg’s horse scattered; one scrawny kid slipped with a shriek that cut out as a wheel sliced his gut. Greg’s horse danced away onto a narrow ribbon of road along the tree line. Hunkered low on the animal’s withers, Greg ducked as low-lying branches whirred over his head. Still on the driver’s box, Neo Kid and Rat Boy staggered, then turned as the distance between them and Ellie’s wagon dwindled.
Watching the horse charge and the wagon swell, Ellie had six seconds: one to be paralyzed; two to understand that a collision was inevitable and that either the horse would stampede its way onto their flatbed or come to a sudden screeching stop, catapulting Neo Kid and Rat Boy into their wagon, where the two would find not only dogs to fight but lots of new things to eat. In the last three seconds, Ellie knew she’d better do something, or she was a goner.
“Mina, release! Out of the wagon!” Snatching the white-haired girl’s hand, Ellie took the width of the flatbed in two huge strides. “Get out get out get out!”
114
The village square was completely empty. Racing past the gazebo, Tom and Chris pulled up at the northwest corner between the village hall and church. Dismounting before the dun mare had come to a complete stop, Tom snatched Night’s reins before Chris could swing down.
“No.” Tom’s face was pinched. Clutching his wounded, still-oozing thigh just above the protruding bit of metal, he said, hoarsely, “Not you.”
“What? No, I’m fine now.” From the open doors of the church came the rise and fall of a hymn, but the bell was silent. “You shouldn’t climb with that leg. I’ll take the bell tower, you do the jail, and—”
“No.” Tom backhanded sweat from a glassy upper lip. “You can’t be part of this.”
“What?” Despite Tom’s admonition, Chris dismounted. “Tom, what are you doing?”
“Someone has to stay behind,” Tom said. “We both know that.”
“No, I don’t know that.” He grabbed Tom’s shoulders. “Are you crazy? They’ll be here. The bombs are on timers, for God’s sake. So why?”
“Because if something goes wrong, I’m the only one who knows what to do.”
“Tom. If you stay, you’ll die. They’ll catch you.”
“They won’t. I’ll stay out of sight. Babysit those honeys until the last second.” Tom laid a hand over one of his. “Chris, please, there’s no time. Don’t make this harder for both of us. If the bombs don’t blow, all this will be wasted. Those people in that church will die for nothing.”
“They’ll die anyway.” His eyes were starting to sting. “They made their choice.”
“And this is mine. Chris, I have to. This way, I buy you time. We stop Finn’s Changed. We stop Finn. Then the children, yours and mine, will be safe.”
“We don’t know if we got yours yet. If we didn’t—”
“Then we tried. If you can, you find them. Look, we both know the threat doesn’t end here. There are way more Changed than us. But this way, you guys have a chance.”
“Please, Tom.” His eyes brimmed. “You saved my life, twice. Please, please, don’t stay here. Set the bombs and come with me.”
“I can’t, Chris.” Tom cupped the back of Chris’s neck. “Come on, man, please. This is hard enough. Believe me, I don’t want to die. There’s Ellie, and Alex is still out there, I feel it; I should never have lost faith, because she’s strong; she won’t quit. But I have to do this for my people—”
From the north, and not far away at all, in fact, there came the faint but unmistakable sputter and spackle of gunfire.
“Oh God.” Chris felt his heart seize. “Tom, that’s got to be the wagons.”
“More Changed? But how?” Tom’s skin was whiter than bone. “Finn’s south.”
“I don’t know, but we got to go. Come on!” When Tom didn’t move, Chris clutched his arm. “Tom, they need us!”
“Chris, I . . . I can’t. Damn it, I . . .” Shrugging off the Uzi’s carry strap, Tom threw the bolt, then clicked the safety and thrust out the weapon. “Selector switch,” Tom said, pointing. “One- or three-shot bursts. For God’s sake, don’t go full auto or you’ll be dry in four seconds.”
“Tom, no, I can’t—”
“Yes, Chris, you can. You have to, just like I have to stay. There’s no other way. You can do this.” Tom was slapping two spare mags into Chris’s hands. “Keep count, pick your shots, be careful, don’t lose your head. You got forty rounds in each clip and there are thirty-one left in the mag you got, one in the chamber already. You have plenty of firepower, and you’re silenced. Huge advantage. They won’t know you’re there until you’re on top of them. The kids are close, Chris. You can be there in minutes if you move fast, but you have to leave right now.”
“But Tom, the kids, they need help—”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Tom grabbed Chris and shook him. His strange and smoky blue eyes blazed with fury and frustration. The cords, taut as steel, stood in his neck. “Don’t you know this is killing me? Ellie is out there, but Finn is going to be here, and there is no choice and we are out of time! Now, stop arguing and go before it’s too late!”
He knew he had to do it. “Goddamn you,” Chris said. Instead of batting Tom’s hand away, he pulled Tom into a fast and ferocious hug. Then, without another word, he broke away and charged for Night, flinging himself up onto the saddle. He cut one last look: not at Rule but Tom, so strong and ready to sacrifice it all because, when there was no other way, that’s what you did to keep your people safe.
“Go, Chris,” Tom said.
Kicking Night to a gallop, Chris spun his horse and thundered away.
115
The charging wagon was three seconds away . . . and now the peopleeaters milling around theirs saw the danger, broke, fell back . . . and then there were two seconds and the animals were spilling out . . .
Not pausing to see if anyone followed, Ellie planted her right boot, then flung herself and the white-haired girl in a high and long arc. The little girl was shrieking, the sound sharp as a nail. Ellie landed with a solid thump. The little girl barreled into her a second later, driving Ellie’s chin into the ground. Her mouth fired with a dart of red pain.
There was a huge, splintering crash as the out-of-control horse slammed into the back end of their flatbed. Gasping, blood on her tongue, Ellie craned back. Braying, the horse clattered sideways, trying to work its way around the stalled wagon. Shrieking children foamed over the sides. Something shifted in the supply wagon, or perhaps an axle snagged, because all of a sudden the wagon tipped, dragging down the thrashing horse. Cardboard boxes and packs tumbled out. Many burst, and then people-eaters, who’d scattered just before the collision, closed ranks. As Mina bolted to her side, Jet, Ghost, and four other dogs boiled around the other kids, snarling and snapping, trying to keep the people-eaters at bay. Only Sarah remained on the now-empty wagon, still clinging to the driver’s box, a curtain of hair over her face, empty pistol in one hand.
“Sarah!” Sweeping up her Savage, Ellie scrambled to her feet. “Sarah, get off the wagon, come on!”
Dazed, the older girl pulled her head around as if swimming through a sticky dream and then half jumped, half fell from the driver’s box. A gangly, bucktoothed people-eater swooped in from the left and closed fast. Sarah saw it coming and froze.
“No, Sarah, don’t stop! Keep running!” Ellie screamed. “Keep—”
From her right came the crack of a shot. A scarlet blossom flowered over Bucktooth’s back. The people-eater crashed to the road in a spectacular belly flop a foot shy of where Sarah still cringed. Greg dashed from the trees, on foot, three kids in tow: “Sarah, grab the kids, grab the kids! Get behind the dogs!”
Part of Ellie wanted to go back to the older kids, to Greg and Jayden. But right now, she and the white-haired girl hadn’t been noticed, and that would change. Even with Mina, they were too exposed. But she remembered how quickly Lucian had been lost from sight. Get far enough, fast enough, and hide until Tom and Chris get here. The wagons hadn’t made great time, and that meant they weren’t that far from Rule. So Tom would hear the shots, and he’d come really fast. She wouldn’t have to hide for very long.
