Be careful, Mom said from the warmth of his memories, or you’ll catch your death.
Catch your death.
Jack thought about that as Dad struggled with the two white-faced people. The wind pushed him around, made him sway like a stalk of green corn.
He saw Dad let go of one of the people so he could grab for the pistol tucked into his waistband.
No, Dad, thought Jack. Don’t do that. They’ll get you if you do that.
Dad grabbed the pistol, brought it up, jammed the barrel under Jose’s chin. Fired. Jose’s hair seemed to jump off his head and then he was falling, his fingers going instantly slack.
But the soldier.
He darted his head forward and clamped his teeth on Dad’s wrist. On the gun wrist.
Dad screamed again. The pistol fired again, but the bullet went all the way up into the storm and disappeared.
Jack was utterly unable to move. Pale figures continued to come lumbering out of the rain. They came toward him, reached for him . . .
. . . but not one of them touched him.
Not one.
And there were so many.
Dad was surrounded now. He screamed and screamed, and fired his pistol. Three of the figures fell. Four. Two got back up again, the holes in their chests leaking black blood. The other two dropped backward with parts of their heads missing.
Aim for the head, Dad, thought Jack. It’s what they do in the video games.
Dad never played those games. He aimed center mass and fired. Fired.
And then the white-faced people dragged him down into the frothing water.
Jack knew that he should do something. At the same time, and with the kind of mature clarity that came with dying at his age, he knew that he was in shock. Held in place by it. Probably going to be killed by it. If not by these . . . whatever they were . . . then by the vicious cold that was chewing its way up his spindly legs.
He could not move if he was on fire, he knew that. He was going to stand there and watch the world go all the way crazy. Maybe this was the black wall of nothing that he imagined. This . . .
What was it?
A plague? Or, what did they call it? Mass hysteria?
No. People didn’t eat each other during riots. Not even soccer riots.
This was different.
This was monster stuff.
This was stuff from TV and movies and video games.
Only the special effects didn’t look as good. The blood wasn’t bright enough. The wounds didn’t look as disgusting. It was always better on TV.
Jack knew that his thoughts were crazy.
I’m in shock, duh.
He almost smiled.
And then he heard Jill.
Screaming.
Jack ran.
He went from frozen immobility to full-tilt run so fast that he felt like he melted out of the moment and reappeared somewhere else. It was surreal. That was a word he knew from books he’d read. Surreal. Not entirely real.
That fit everything that was happening.
His feet were so cold it was like running on knives. He ran into the teeth of the wind as the white-faced people shambled and splashed toward him and then turned away with grunts of disgust.
I’m not what they want, he thought.
He knew that was true, and he thought he knew why.
It made him run faster.
He slogged around the end of the Durango and tripped on something lying half-submerged by the rear wheel.
Something that twitched and jerked as white faces buried their mouths on it and pulled with bloody teeth. Pulled and wrenched, like dogs fighting over a beef bone.
Only it wasn’t beef.
The bone that gleamed white in the lightning flash belonged to Uncle Roger. Bone was nearly all that was left of him as figures staggered away clutching red lumps to their mouths.
Jack gagged and then vomited into the wind. The wind slapped his face with what little he’d eaten that day. He didn’t care. Jill wouldn’t care.
Jill screamed again and Jack skidded to a stop, turning, confused. The sound of her scream no longer came from the far side of the truck. It sounded closer than that, but it was a gurgling scream.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed her name into the howling storm.
A hand closed around his ankle.
Under the water.
From under the back of the truck.
Jack screamed again, inarticulate and filled with panic as he tried to jerk his leg away. The hand holding him had no strength and his ankle popped free and Jack staggered back and then fell flat on his ass in the frigid water. It splashed up inside his raincoat and soaked every inch of him. Three of the white-faced things turned to glare at him, but their snarls of anger flickered and went out as they found nothing worth hunting.
“Jack—?”
Her voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Still wet and gurgling, drowned by rain and blown thin by the wind.
But so close.
Jack stared at the water that smacked against the truck. At the pale, thin, grasping hand that opened and closed on nothing but rainwater.
“Jack?”
“Jill!” he cried, and Jack struggled onto his knees and began pawing and slapping at the water, pawing at it as if he could dig a hole in it. He bent and saw a narrow gap between the surface of the water and the greasy metal undersides of the truck. He saw two eyes, there and gone again in the lightning bursts. Dark eyes that he knew would be red.
“Jill!” he croaked at the same moment that she cried, “Jack!”
He grabbed her hands and pulled.
The mud and the surging water wanted to keep her, but not as much as he needed to pull her out. She came loose with a glop! They fell back together, sinking into the water, taking mouthfuls of it, choking, coughing, sputtering, gagging it out as they helped each other sit up.
The white things came toward them. Drawn to the splashing or drawn to the fever that burned in Jill’s body. Jack could feel it from where he touched her. It was as if there was a coal furnace burning bright under her skin. Even with all this cold rain and runoff, she was hot. Steam curled up from her.
None curled up from Jack. His body felt even more shrunken than usual. Thinner, drawn into itself to kindle the last sparks of what he had left. He moaned in pain as he tried to stand. The creatures surrounding him moaned, too. Their cries sounded no different from his.
He forced himself to stand and wrapped his arm around Jill.
“Run!” he cried.
They cut between two of the figures, and the things turned awkwardly, pawing at them with dead fingers, but Jack and Jill ducked and slipped past. The porch was close but the water made it hard to run. The creatures with the white faces were clumsier and slower, and that helped.
Thunder battered the farm, deafening Jack and Jill as they collapsed onto the stairs and crawled like bugs onto the plank floor. The front door was wide open, the glow from the Coleman lantern showing the way.
“Jack . . . ” Jill mumbled, slurring his name. “I feel sick.”
The monsters in the rain kept coming, and Jack realized that they had ignored him time and again. These creatures were not chasing him now. They were coming for Jill. They wanted her.
Her. Not him.
Why?
Because they want life.
That’s why they went after Mom and Dad and Uncle Roger.
That’s why they want Jill.
Not him.
He wasn’t sure how or why he knew that, but he was absolutely certain of it. The need for life was threaded through that awful moan. Toby had wanted more life. He wanted to be alive, but he’d reached the point where he was more dead than alive. Sliding down, down, down.