With the barrel of the rifle resting on my shoulder I nosed into the abandoned ticket hall of the ferry office (bread bandits had even torn the carpets up), then I crossed the street to look into what remained of a general store (nothing but empty boxes and baby bones). Next to it was a hotel that seemed pretty much intact. A canvas awning projected over the sidewalk. It looked dirty but otherwise undamaged. I began to ask myself if this would serve as a place to stay until we decided what we should do next.
I backstepped into the road, looking up at the six-storied building. Its facade could have been a tear-stained face. Rain teamed with soot from the fires that destroyed most of Lewis to create the illusion. Black bands ran down from each window. A pretty little bitch she wasn’t, but she might do for we poor waifs and strays who had no roof over our heads. Hell, even the glass in the windows was intact. And get this; this was the odd thing. All the glass in the windows must have been set at a certain precise angle because as I looked up into the dark face of the building I could see my reflection in a dozen or more windows.
I gazed up, and my reflection gazed down with a wide-eyed intensity that-
Shit. Those aren’t reflections, Valdiva.
There, looking down at me, with a silent, brooding intensity, were men’s faces. There was something alien about the way they didn’t move. Only their eyes moved to follow me as I, not taking my eyes off them, edged slowly away.
Only when I had moved out of their line of sight did I turn my back on them. Then I moved quickly-but not running, not looking scared-because if I ran, a little bird with terrible frightened eyes told me, that would provoke those guys in the hotel into chasing me.
Ahead of me a group of men blocked my way. Pulling back the rifle bolt, I raised the muzzle, aimed.
“Greg. Whoa… it’s us. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”
I wiped the perspiration from my eyes to see Ben waving his hands above his head. With him were the people I’d seen yesterday, including Michaela. The others were more interested in the food bags. They hurried forward to drop down onto their knees, where they rooted through the supplies like excited kids at Christmas rifling through their stockings.
“Corned beef… hey, tinned chili.”
“Bread! Beautiful white bread!”
“Creamed chicken.”
“Get a load of this, tinned peaches. Wow!”
Heart thumping, I ran up to Michaela. “Get your people to pick up this stuff, then get out of here.”
“Greg, give them a minute or two to enjoy this, can’t you? They haven’t seen food like-”
“Michaela, get these people away from here!”
Instinct kicked in. She glanced ’round, her senses suddenly razor sharp. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a bunch of people in a building back there.”
“They look like hornets?”
Ben frowned. “What the hell are hornets?”
“Bread bandits.”
“Oh, shit.”
Michaela slipped the shotgun from her shoulder. “They see you?”
I nodded. “But they didn’t seem to be in any rush to follow me.”
“If they stayed put we should have time to get away. They’re probably guarding a hive.”
The memory of that thing I found in the apartment came back to me like a bad taste in my mouth. “You mean there are more of those things ’round here?”
“Hives? Yes, probably dozens in a place this size.”
“Hornets? Hives?” Ben looked bewildered. “What are you guys talking about?”
I said, “Hell on Earth. That’s what we’re talking about, Ben. Hell on Earth.”
Twenty-one
We carried the supplies through darkened streets. Zak led the way, almost smelling the air for trouble. I counted ten in Michaela’s gang. They were all young and I couldn’t place anyone over the age of twenty. The youngest was the kid I’d first clapped eyes on when I arrived in Sullivan after my drinking binge (and who I nearly killed). He’d have been around ten years old.
As I walked I held this whispered conversation with Michaela. Ben tried to follow what we were talking about, although his expression, one that bonded fear and bewilderment, told me he understood precious little.
“Those hornets in the hotel,” I said, “they were guarding a hive?”
“I don’t want to see for myself, but my guess is that they are.”
“They won’t follow us?”
“Some of them might.”
“While the rest guard the hive?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“But hornets don’t as a rule carry firearms, so we should be all right.”
“I’m glad you’re confident.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if twenty or thirty jump us we won’t have the firepower to kill them all fast enough. Some might get through. They’ll have machetes, clubs, wrenches, knives.”
“You’ve lost people before like this?”
“Greg, when we started out our group numbered more than thirty. We’re down to ten. See?”
I nodded. “But the hive I found… I didn’t see any hornets. Why wasn’t it guarded like that one back there?”
Even under the burden of bags she shrugged. “A tainted hive.”
“You mean they go bad somehow? Or become corrupted?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Greg. We’ve found hives with a couple of hundred hornets guarding them. They must be the really important ones. Usually the guards number between twenty and thirty. Then again…” She shrugged. “Sometimes there are none. It’s as if the hive’s gone wrong and they abandon it.”
“What actually is a hive, then? What’s its purpose?”
She smiled. “Questions, questions. I don’t know, Greg. We don’t have any professors of biology here, or even a two-bit test-tube jock. We’re just a bunch of kids trying to keep on the warm side of the grave. You follow?”
“But it’s just this hive. The smell of it, and how it looked.. .”
“You’re right. They’re weird. They’re also a God al-mighty mystery…” She looked at me with a sudden sharpness, as if she’d read something in my expression. “What else is there, Greg?”
A strange churning sensation had started in my head. “I can’t explain it… I know it’s impossible, but these hives… I think I’ve seen one before.”
Back at the yard that served as the makeshift camp Michaela had a hurried conversation with Zak and Tony. Then she came across to where Ben and I sat by the fire. “We’ll move on at first light,” she told us. “You best get some sleep now.”
Ben cast some pretty scared-looking glances out into the darkness. “What about the bread bandits, I-I mean hornets? Won’t they come looking for us?”
“It’s unlikely at night. But we’ll be taking turns to keep watch. Yours will be between two and three. So get some sleep now.”
He looked startled that he’d be expected to keep watch.
“Don’t worry,” she told him, “just keep your wits about you, then shout as loud as you can if you see anything. Think you can handle that?”
“Don’t worry.” He looked scared sick. “If I see any-thing you’ll hear me yell, all right.”
She added, “We’ve already loaded the bikes now so we can be away fast.”
“You’ve got bikes?”
“A nice pack of Harley Ds. We found them in a dealer’s showroom a couple of months ago.” She shot me a grin. “You didn’t think we walked everywhere, did you?” With that she pushed back her hair and lay down on a blanket. “By the way, Greg, take the watch after Ben’s.” She grinned again. “Sweet dreams.”