“You think I had something to do with that?” he asked Moore, stricken. “You think I’m part of that group, PACA?”
“What else would you be doing here?” Moore demanded.
“I’ve told you. I was working out here. I don’t know anything about your house or this PACA organization. All I know is what Suzette told me. I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry Alice’s nurse died, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. Why the hell would you think that?”
From outside, they heard a sharp, sudden burst of automatic gunfire, followed by another, then another. Overlapping these came a sudden, reverberating shriek from somewhere out in the forest, an agonized scream that, like the gunshots, quickly echoed again and again.
“What the—?” Andrew turned to the nearest window, startled.
“He sent the soldiers into the woods a little while ago,” Alice whispered, eyes enormous with fright. “He told them you were out there, that you were dangerous, Andrew.” Stricken and trembling, she said, “He told them to kill you.”
“What?” Andrew asked. “Who said that, Alice?”
He knew, of course. With a sinking feeling, he knew what she’d say even before she opened her mouth. “Major Prendick. He’s the one who told Daddy you set the fire that killed Martha.”
“Alice, stop it,” Moore said. He reached for her, but she shrugged him away, scurrying to Andrew.
“He told Daddy if he let you leave, you’d bring the others back. The PACA people.”
“Alice,” Moore said, but Andrew stood, blocking his path, positioning himself between father and daughter.
“He said you’d try to hurt us again—hurt me again—like they did in Boston when they killed Martha,” Alice whispered, curling her fingers anxiously against his shirt.
Oh, Jesus, no wonder Moore hates me, Andrew thought in dismay. No wonder he’s had it out for me all along.
“I’d never hurt you,” he said to Alice. “Either of you.”
“I know,” she replied. “But Daddy believed Major Prendick. The soldiers did, too. Now they’re out there looking for you. And they’re all going to die.”
Andrew turned to Moore. “What’s out there with them?”
The older man didn’t answer, simply stood there and angry, Andrew marched toward him. “What the hell is out in the woods?”
He reached out, jerking the gun from Moore’s grasp. With a frown, Moore moved to snatch it back, and they tussled together, grappling over the pistol, staggering and stumbling in wide, clumsy circles.
“Andrew, no! Please!” Shoving her way between them, Alice held out her hands like a school crossing guard, tearful and pleading. “Both of you, please stop!”
In that moment, the lights overhead made a strange sort of noise, like the snap-crackle-pop! from old Rice Krispies cereal commercials, then, with a staccato flickering, they abruptly went dark both inside and out, plunging the entire compound into darkness.
Alice cried out, a confused and frightened mewl, and Andrew felt her press herself against his side, trembling beneath the shelter of his arm.
“What happened to the lights?” he asked Moore, tightening his grip on the gun lest the doctor use the opportunity to try and wrestle it from him.
“They knocked them out,” Alice whispered from beside him. “They must’ve killed all the soldiers and now they’re coming for us.”
“Who did?” Andrew asked, again directing the question not to her, but to her father. “Who’s coming?”
When Moore cut his eyes briefly away, back down the hall in the direction of the infirmary, Andrew felt a sinking, sickening horror because he knew.
The screamers.
Andrew ordered Moore to take him to the lab to get Dani.
“You don’t want to do that,” Moore had said, just as another patter of gunfire echoed from deep in the woods. The sounds had grown sporadic, nearly disappearing in full, and Andrew was of the frame of mind this was not a good thing.
“Yes, I do.” Andrew had gestured demonstratively with the gun in response.
“We can barricade ourselves in here,” Moore had said. “Even without the power. We’ve got food, potable water, enough so that we—”
“I said we’re going to the lab.” Andrew had mashed the barrel of the pistol into Moore’s nose, flattening it. “Now.”
As it had been earlier, when Andrew had trekked out in search of O’Malley, the woods around them lay heavy, still and silent, unnaturally so. Even the wind seemed to have gone dormant and the air felt cold and thick around them, seeping through their clothes and skin, sinking deep into their bones with an unsettling chill.
Andrew tried to do some quick math in his head, in spite of his mounting panic and the fact his senses were still somewhat reeling from where he had been struck with the gun. How many soldiers did Prendick send out into the forest? There were twenty-four to start with, Dani told me, less seven from Alpha Squad, and Lieutenant Carter, who were all shipped home. That makes sixteen, then minus one for Prendick, another O’Malley and Dani…
“Twelve,” Alice whispered to him. He hadn’t realized he’d been thinking out loud until her quiet voice interrupted him. “Prendick sent twelve soldiers into the woods.”
When Moore tried to take Alice by the hand so she’d walk with him, Andrew pulled her protectively behind him. “She’s with me.”
“I don’t trust you with my daughter.” Moore’s voice was tight and clipped, his eyes narrowed into slits.
“Yeah? I don’t trust you period,” Andrew shot back.
They reached the house of pain, the main door, and Andrew held the gun out, his finger poised against the trigger. “Open it.”
“I can’t,” Moore replied. “With the power out, the building is sealed.”
Swinging the gun away from Moore’s head, Andrew aimed for the center of the plate glass door. It was tempered, but not bullet-proof, and when Andrew squeezed the trigger, sending out a sharp, booming report, it punched a single hole, no bigger than a silver dollar, through the center of the heavy pane, with a spider web of cracks and fragments—thousands of splinters and shards—spreading out in a broad circumference.
The recoil from the pistol shot shuddered through Andrew’s hand, up his arm and into his shoulder, nearly staggering him. Alice had tucked her face into his side at the thunderous shot, hands clamped to her ears, her entire body rigid. She looked up, remaining huddled next to him, coughing on the acrid gun smoke that lingered in a thin haze.
Cringing, shoulders hunched, Moore blinked at Andrew in wide-eyed aghast. “You’re crazy,” he gasped.
“I’m getting there,” Andrew agreed, motioning with the gun. “Now help me kick that glass out. Come on.”
The entire building was silent, save for the quiet crunch of their footsteps in broken glass and the quiet, insectile buzz of emergency lights sporadically recessed in the ceiling. Running off limited battery power alone, these cast pale splotches of glow in narrow circumferences, lining their path like a dot-to-dot puzzle in a kids’ activity book.
“Which way?” Andrew asked.
“I locked her in my office,” Moore replied.
Good, Andrew thought. He’d been to Moore’s office before and still had a dim recollection of the way. Hopefully enough so that I’ll know if he tries any tricks, takes me anyplace else but there.
“Move.” He waved the gun again. “Go.”